The Bride Wore Pearls (25 page)

“And perhaps you should call on him?” said Miss de Rohan. “It’s a bit of a drive, but it will be worth it. He’s frightfully bored in the country, so tell him I sent you. Ask him what he knows.”

Rance tilted his head to one side. “And what does he know?”

“Oh, everything, more or less,” said Miss de Rohan brightly. “And that which he does not know, he can winkle out of someone—or threaten it out, if he must.”

Then she, too, kissed Anisha’s cheek, and they were gone. Anisha stood in the open doorway until Geoff’s carriage was rolling down the drive, the wind off the river damp in her face, and Rance’s warmth at her back.

“Well, Nish,” he murmured as she shut the door, “this could have been worse, I suppose.”

On a faintly hysterical laugh, Anisha turned. “Truly—?” she said. “How?”

But Rance had not stepped back. Instead, he merely looked down at her from beneath a fringe of dark lashes. “Well, the beef was perfectly done,” he said dryly. “The champagne was just the right temperature. Lucan had not
quite
deflowered the poor girl when we caught up with him. And you—well, you could have been going to Napier’s mother’s house for dinner, I suppose. That would be a bad sign.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Instead of the theater,” he clarified, his eyes darkening. “You did promise to accompany him to the theater, I collect?”

She held up a warning finger. “Rance, do
not
start with me!”

His jaw was set in that rigid, all-too familiar line. “I am not starting,” he said quietly. “I am finished, Nish. I don’t know what else I can say.”

“Nothing,” she said, coming away from the door. “Look, do you want another whisky?”

He dragged a hand through his hair. “I ought to go, I suppose,” he said. “Are you tired?”

“Tired of standing in the hall, yes,” she said, starting down the passageway. “Beyond that, I scarcely know what I am. I feel as if I’ve been nailed shut in a barrel and rolled off a cliff.”

Lazonby knew the feeling. Resisting his instinct to go, he followed her back into the parlor and retrieved his glass from the mantelpiece. As Anisha drew shut the pocket doors that opened onto the withdrawing room, he filled his glass, and one for her as well.

By the time she plopped back onto the sofa, he was pressing it into her hands. “I don’t drink spirits,” she said.

“Tonight you should,” he said a little grimly. “Tonight we both need a drink.”

He sat down beside her and watched as she took a little sip, her nose wrinkling most attractively. “
Hmm,
” she said. “That is an acquired taste, I believe.”

He gave a bark of laughter and set his glass down.

“So,” she said, edging forward on the sofa. “What did Miss de Rohan give you?”

Reminded of it, he extracted the note from his pocket and read it. “The address of some chap in Buckhurst Hill,” he said, passing it to her. “George Kemble. Can’t think as I know him.”

“Nor do I,” she murmured, studying it. “Not that that means much. Will you go?”

He thought about it for a moment. “It would seem ungrateful to spurn her suggestion,” he finally said.

“When?” Lightly, she laid her hand over his. “And may I come with you?”

He looked down at their hands, hers so small and slender, the fingers lying coolly across his own, and resisted the urge to lift it to his lips. Lord, he was reluctant to further involve her. And just as reluctant to let go of whatever threads of her he dared cling to.

Perhaps he wanted to believe they were in this together.

They were not. This mess of his own making had nothing to do with her. And Miss de Rohan’s offer aside, that faint spiraling of hope he’d felt in Ruthveyn’s garden had been but a chimera; a fantasy bred of dreams and desperation. He was likely no closer to extricating himself from the tangle of deceit than the day the judge had banged his gavel and sent him to rot in the filth of Newgate.

But Anisha was looking at him expectantly with her wide-set, intelligent eyes; looking straight through to the heart of him, it often felt. And he, it seemed, was weak.

“I suppose we might go in a day or two if the weather holds,” he finally answered. “But in a closed carriage this time, Nish. Our quiet friendship is one thing. But being too often on my arm in public? It won’t do.”

“I believe whom I’m seen with is my decision,” she replied.

He found he could not look at her. “You must think of the boys, Nish, and of your future,” he said quietly. “Besides, no one is going anywhere until I’m sure young Lucan has done his duty by Miss Rutledge.”

“And if he does not?” she asked.

“I will be tempted, of course, to give him a good hiding with my riding crop,” said Lazonby, his voice grim. “But, as someone so recently recommended, I am coming slowly to accept that I am not omnipotent. That I cannot force everyone to do my bidding—even when I know bloody well that I am right.”

Anisha did not even remind him not to curse. Instead she lifted her hand away and sat quietly for a long moment, staring at her spurned glass as if the golden elixir might hold all the world’s truths.

“You are taking this to heart, aren’t you?” she said softly. “This business of looking after us?”

“You have known me a long while, Nish,” he replied, “but known me, perhaps, at more of a distance than you realize.”

She turned to him, her gaze quizzical. “I don’t understand.”

He tried to smile and failed. “You once said I was not what I pretended to be,” he murmured. “I think perhaps you were right.”

“I know I was,” she said gently.

He stared into the cold, black depths of the hearth. “I try not to forget, Nish, the man my father brought me up to be,” he said. “Some days, though, I must search pretty hard for him inside myself. But I am not so steeped in bitterness, so driven by revenge, that I’ve lost my course entirely. There is still a little of the gentleman in me, I suppose. Yes, I take this to heart. I swore to your brother that I would look after you for the year or so he’s gone. And I will. Somehow.”

Anisha drew a deep breath. “But this is just the theater, you know,” she said, broaching the subject that hung like a dead weight between them. “It will be very public. And Luc is going with me.”

“Oh, well then!” Lazonby threw his hands up. “I’ve nothing to worry about! After all, who could be more responsible than Luc?”

“Rance,” she said, cutting him a chiding glance. “Luc will do well enough for appearance’s sake. But make no mistake—I am
responsible
for myself.”

He drank for a moment in silence. The truth was, she was responsible for far more than herself. Her children. Her younger brother. The running of the house. More, even, than that in Ruthveyn’s absence. Still, he wanted to rail at her, to tell her that
he
was responsible for her. That she was a fool for continuing to see Napier, and that he forbade it.

But that strategy had not thus far got him anywhere. And where did he wish it to get him, anyway? Anisha was not a fool. She was sensible and, for the most part, wise to the world. The problem—the
possessiveness
—was his.

And Napier, the arrogant coxcomb! Good God, Lazonby had wanted to throttle him tonight. Weeks ago, he had convinced himself that Geoff marrying Anisha was something he could have borne. Geoff was a good and worthy man. But he knew now that, even then, he had been lying to himself.

“Rance.” Her soft voice severed his thoughts. “There is only one reason I continue to see Napier, and you know it. Now, may we change the subject? I wish to tell you about a garden party I’ve a notion to attend.”

“A garden party?” He was instantly suspicious.

Anisha proceeded to lay out Lady Madeleine’s plan to introduce her to Sir Wilfred Leeton.

He let his gaze drift over her face. “Nish, I’m not sure it’s wise,” he said. “And I don’t recall hearing about Leeton’s being knighted. Hannah must be proud enough to pop her stitches.”

She turned a little toward him, her hand returning to lie lightly over his. “You know her?”

He lifted one shoulder. “Well, I remember her,” he said. “She was a little outré in those days. A rich lady friend of Arthur’s, actually.”

“Ah, yes,” said Anisha. “I heard a bit of gossip about Arthur and his so-called lady friends from Madeleine.”

“Well, their romance—what little there was—didn’t last long. They were just chums, I recollect.” With an absent, natural gesture, Rance began to massage the palm of her hand with his thumb, wondering if she was tired. “Arthur introduced Hannah to Leeton. Brought her round quite a lot, actually, and the three of them fell into the same fast crowd—the demimonde, or dashed near it.”

“And now she is respectable,” Anisha murmured.

“Aye, well, money can do that, if you spread it around in the right places.”

“How jaded that sounds—but alas, not untrue.” Anisha lifted her hand away, leaving him suddenly cold and a little lost.

But why? It was just a touch. Merely her hand. And yet he found himself resisting the urge to seek it out again. To press and knead and work the day’s stress from those small, capable fingers. And then to slip off her shoes and do the same.

But those, oddly, were amongst the most intimate of touches. And the very sort of intimacy he sought so desperately to avoid.

“Rance,” she went on, “you might join us. You and Leeton get on, yes?”

“When I knew him, aye,” said Rance. “But his garden party? I think not.”

“Ah.” She exhaled slowly. “Well, then.”

He cast Anisha a sidelong glance to see that she’d reached up and begun to draw the elaborate feathers from her hair, her arms lifting her lush swell of cleavage. His gaze swept up, taking in her long, elegant neck, set to perfect advantage by her jeweled collar and long, dangling earrings; her full lips and her fine, faintly almond-shaped eyes, and knew that entire wars had been fought for women far less desirable than she.

It felt as if he was fighting one now.

Damn it, he needed to go home. To stay here in his current mood—and having been at Ruthveyn’s whisky much of the night—was to court disaster.

He set the glass away again and rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Nish, it’s late,” he said again as she tossed the last feather on the tea table. “You need your rest.”

As always, it was as if she sensed his mood. Turning to face him, she tucked one leg beneath her and leaned near, setting a palm to his lapel. Her tiny slippers, he noticed, were bejeweled, as they so often were, and around one perfect, slender ankle dangled a charm on a gold chain.

Unable to resist, he reached out to lightly touch it. “I should go,” he whispered.

“Is that really what you want, Rance?” she replied. “To
go
?”

Oh, there was a wealth of intimation in that small, simple question.

Something inside him went perfectly still. He dropped his hand and looked at her. Fleetingly he allowed himself the joy of drinking in that face, which was at once so beautiful and so familiar to him, and those huge brown eyes, like infinite pools of knowledge, so keen and so piercing when she pinned him that Lazonby knew he had few, if any, secrets from her.

“No,” he said quietly. “No, I don’t want to go. Does it make you any happier to have me say it?”

Her smile was muted. He picked up his whisky and drained it.

“You are angry with me,” she said. “You don’t want Napier to court me. But you have not asked me if I mean to court him in return.”

“No,” he said, putting the glass down with a heavy
clunk
. “I have counseled you against having anything to do with the man. But I have thus far resisted the urge to ask anything. It is not my place to do so—again, as you so recently pointed out.”

But her gaze had hardened a little. “I want to take a lover, Rance,” she pressed on. “I am a young woman still. I have grown weary of always sleeping alone.”

Lazonby felt the knife of her words thrust deep and twist, goring at his heart. “Anisha, for God’s sake, just don’t—”

“No, hear me out,” she interjected. “I want a lover, Rance, not necessarily a husband. I want . . .
you
. Oh, I’ve tried not to. I’ve tried to want someone else—or something else—with no luck at all. And I can keep trying, I suppose, if that’s the only choice left to me. I can go to the opera on the arm of a different man every night, and look about me for some temporary distraction. But who I truly want—alas, that will not change.”

“Nish,
don’t,
” he whispered, closing his eyes.

But her hand came up to stroke his face, her fingers warm against the flesh that ached for her touch. “So
if
you are interested in taking up that role, then yes,” she went on. “Yes, you may have some say in what I do and with whom I do it. Yes, you may
ask
me not to see other gentlemen. You may
ask
me to stay away from Napier. As the man sharing my bed, you would have that right.”

“And if I am not?” he rasped, looking at her.