The Elusive Lord Everhart: The Rakes of Fallow Hall Series (6 page)

Gabriel wanted to forget about Calliope’s letter. Forget about all letters—especially the one he’d written to Pamela.
What a horrendous debacle that was
. Right now, he needed to move on with the simple, unfettered life to which he’d grown accustomed.

Knowing that Danvers was scrutinizing his every gesture and expression at that very moment, he refused to reveal the relief he felt at having survived this encounter. Both Montwood and Danvers had once taunted him by claiming they knew his
tell
when he gambled, but neither had told him what it was. Therefore, in order to keep himself from giving anything away, he turned to pet the dog with more affection than the beast deserved.

“You have spoiled my supper, Dog,” he said with one final pat to the side of his neck. The bread wasn’t a great loss, but the cheese had come from their remarkably efficient head butler—private pantry and would have been marvelous with a glass of port.

Summarily dismissed, the dog loped over to the hearth, turned around three times, and plopped down onto the floor, wholly unconcerned over the reprimand.

Danvers leaned a hip against the side of a wing-backed chair opposite the sofa. “I must admit, that encounter left me with a modicum of doubt. Earlier with Croft, you were decidedly unsettled, but just now, you seemed moderately at ease.”

“When you expected disaster?” Relief swept through Gabriel, though outwardly he remained the same. “As I mentioned, you had no reason to make such grand assumptions regarding our wager. If I displayed a measure of unease before, it was because I’d been rather unkind to Miss Croft when last we met. She’d abused my friend’s affections, and I might have been too harsh. In learning she was here, I merely wanted to avoid any need to discuss prior events again. You know how I detest apologizing for my actions.”

“True.” Danvers seemed to take this explanation as fact. “You are fortunate in the fact that Miss Croft appeared not to have been scarred by the previous encounter. In fact, I wonder if she remembered you at all.”

Oh, she remembered him. Gabriel had seen it quite clearly in her slow perusal of his form and the utterly beguiling way she’d held his gaze. “I always took you for a hunter, Danvers. Instead you are dangling bait before me like a fisherman,” he said with a chuckle. “I suggest you focus your plotting elsewhere.”

“Yes. Perhaps, you are right. I wonder if Montwood would be taken in by her. I should arrange for a meeting to determine if—” Danvers stopped. A wide grin broke over his face.

Damn
. Gabriel felt a muscle twitching in his jaw before he’d had the chance to control it. Was that his
tell
, he wondered? He could hardly think straight. At the moment, all he could see was the all-too-charming Montwood alone with Calliope.

That would never happen. Ever. Not if he could help it.

“A fisherman, indeed.” Danvers sketched a courtly bow.

“Be careful that someone does not put a hole in your boat or net,” Gabriel warned. “Our wager is for friendly purposes and not designed to ruin the reputations of our guests. Or had you forgotten?”

Danvers’s only response was a hearty laugh as he left the room.

CHAPTER FOUR

I
’m so very sorry, Brightwell. I cannot marry you.”

Calliope watched Brightwell’s pale, unremarkable features turn hard. She’d expected nothing less after refusing his proposal. But instead of questioning her further, he took her answer and simply left her on the terrace, disappearing into the cold darkness of the Randalls’ garden. Perhaps he’d noticed how distracted she’d been of late—ever since she’d received that letter
.

Before stepping back inside the ballroom, she lifted her gloved hands to her cheeks to check for any sign of wetness. There was none. Surely, she should be crumbling into tears. Brightwell deserved proof that he meant something to her, didn’t he? And yet, while she felt sadness at knowing she was losing a dear friend and hurting him as well, most of all she felt relieved because he hadn’t demanded to know
why
she had refused him
.

After all, she couldn’t have told him that she’d fallen in love with a letter, could she?

Preoccupied by her thoughts, she walked through the veil of diaphanous curtains hanging from the top of the archway. A sweeping melody rose above the crowd of dancers. The strains of violin and cello mingled with the sway and swish of pastel silk skirts, and somehow the combination caused a terrible yearning in her heart. It ached from being empty. She longed for the man she loved to fill the void
.

Everhart suddenly appeared in front of her. Without asking permission, he seized her hand and pulled her into the waltz
.

In no mood for dancing, she prepared a set-down, willing to leave him stranded on the floor this very instant. Yet the intensity in his gaze kept her silent. The power of it coursed through her as if the ground were quaking at her feet, preparing to swallow her into the depths of the earth. She was unable to look away
.

They were friends, or at least they were among a small circle of friends. He smiled and laughed easily with the others. But not with her. He always looked at her as if he disapproved of her. Perhaps he’d guessed that her heart was not set on his friend
.

Gazes locked, they swept turn by turn throughout the ballroom, as if all the other dancers had disappeared. When it ended, she’d stood in his arms for a moment too long. Her breath rushed over her parted lips. For all the world, it looked like he was going to kiss her. Right there and then—

Calliope awoke with a start.

Breathing heavily, she sat up and looked around the room. The golden brocade bed curtains and satin coverlet were unfamiliar. She wasn’t sure where she was. But wait.
Oh
. Then it came to her: Fallow Hall, Pamela, Brightwell, Everhart, and quite possibly . . . a Casanova letter.

That explained why she’d had the dream again. Although in truth, it was more a memory than a dream. The only difference was how it had really ended.

When she’d refused Brightwell in Bath, Everhart
had
seized her for a waltz. After their dance, however, the intensity in his gaze had felt more like he was scolding her than any likelihood that he might have kissed her. His words, the only thing he’d said to her that evening, confirmed it. “You shed no tears over Brightwell.”

At the time, she’d taken the full force of his censure and felt the first sting of tears that should have been for Brightwell instead of herself.

Everhart had always been so affable with everyone else, but not with her. Perhaps it was because he’d felt his friend deserved someone better. It had been the truth, hadn’t it? Brightwell deserved someone who loved him. Someone who hadn’t been pining over a letter. Because of that, she’d borne Everhart’s reprimand, left the Randall ball, and promptly crumbled into tears.

The memory of her foolishness still festered.

Parting the bed curtains, she noted the warm glow of the embers in the hearth and surmised it was still hours until dawn. The sight awakened an irrepressible desire for toasted bread and warm tea. Her stomach rumbled. Pressing a hand to her middle, she knew it was no use. Sleep would evade her if she tried to reclaim it. She was still hungry from missing dinner. Perhaps if she slipped down to the kitchen . . . Then afterward, she would attempt sleep once more.

Donning a wrapper over her soft flannel night rail, along with a pair of thick wool stockings, she left her chamber. In the hall, the sconces had all been doused, likely by Valentine. If not for the taper in her hand, she would have tripped over the large gray dog she’d met earlier in the map room. Sprawled out on the Persian runner outside her door, he merely lifted his head at the sound of her gasp, as if he was used to startling women in the dead of night.

“Hullo, Boris Reginald James Brutus,” she said in the hopes of sounding more friendly than alarmed. Was it true that the scent of fear excited the appetites of large, beastly animals? If she were the lead character in her own novel, then she might very well need a dashing hero to stride down the hall and save her from harm.

But the beast in question merely lowered his head to his paws, apparently bored by their brief exchange. One had to wonder how many women the rakes of Fallow Hall entertained to inspire such a bland response. Perhaps she didn’t need a hero after all, but someone who could figure out the dog’s name.

Looking down at him, she recalled the name Everhart had used and decided he looked very much like an indifferent duke. “Hullo, Duke.”

Since she didn’t expect a response, the quirk of his ears and thump of his tail caught her off guard. It wasn’t a complete victory in the name category, but he seemed to like it.

Bending down, she gave him a scratch behind the ears, earning faster tail-thumps as her reward. “I don’t suppose you’d know the way to the kitchen.”

Duke Boris Reginald James Brutus licked her hand and gradually assembled his large frame into a standing position atop his four saucer-sized paws. He took a few steps down the hall and then looked back at her, snuffing through his nostrils as if asking whether she planned to follow or stand there like a ninny.

Beset by another rumble of her stomach and imagining a dog that size would know the precise location of the kitchen, Calliope followed.

He headed down the curving main stairs, through the great hall, down a corridor, past the drawing room, and around a series of corners until he suddenly stopped in front of a familiar set of French doors.
The map room
.

“This isn’t the kitchen,” she scolded quietly.

Unconcerned, Duke sank down onto the floor, forming a rather large, dog-shaped, lumpy gray puddle. She had a mind to come up with her own name for him. Something far less noble to serve as a punishment for elevating her hopes.

Pressing one hand to her stomach and contemplating which direction the kitchen would likely be, she let out a sigh—and promptly blew out her own candle. Then, she let out a second sigh because of her own stupidity.

Now, she was completely immersed in darkness. Even down on the main floor, the wall sconces had been extinguished. Not to mention, the odds of finding flint and steel in an unfamiliar house without tripping over something first was remote at best.

“Perhaps I should name you Prometheus and see if you can light this taper for me.” She glared down to the floor where she’d last seen the dog. That was when she noticed a faint glow, radiating through the gap beneath the bottom of the doors to the map room. If there was light, she thought, then there was a hearth fire enough for her wick.

But just as she gripped the knob, it went stiff in her grasp.

Suddenly the door swung inward, pulling her along with it. Too startled to make a sound, she tumbled forward—
or nearly did
. An instant before she fell to her knees, a pair of strong, warm hands caught her by the shoulders.

“Thank you. I—
Everhart
!”

His stunned expression matched the abrupt stillness that moved through her.

Like that moment at the Randall ball, her heart and lungs seized when her gaze collided with his. She was trapped, mouth agape, unblinking. And standing
far
too close for propriety’s sake.

Of course, it went beyond mentioning that unmarried women wearing nightclothes, thickly made or not, should never visit a gentleman in a secluded part of a dark house. Especially not a reputed seducer. One who’d abandoned his coat and cravat, no less. The dusting of fine golden hair emerging from the open neck of his shirt served as a potent reminder of this fact.

She swallowed. “At this hour, I never imagined that you . . . In fact, I thought the house was . . . You see, I was hungry . . . But the dog . . . And then the candle . . . So I came in here to light it,” she explained in one breath, exhaling the last of her air. It was quite possible she would faint next.

Calliope had never fainted before. Doing so would be a novel experience. Everhart was already holding her; therefore, she wouldn’t crash to the floor. In addition, if she fainted now, then she wouldn’t have to endure any reproach for disturbing him, or for being out of bed in the dark, or for any number of reasons.

Unfortunately, it appeared as though she wasn’t going to faint. She distinctly felt her heart start beating again, albeit wildly. Her lungs filled, emptied, and filled again.

Yet, Everhart still held her. Although his large hands
had
slid an inch or two lower. The tips of his fingers curled around to the underside of her arms, where she was certain no man had ever touched her before. That sensitive, undisturbed part of her tingled with awareness, just shy of tickling. His thumbs grazed her in tiny circles, as if he were worrying a coin-sized mark through the soft cotton.

“That still does not explain why you are here in Fallow Hall, bewitching both man and beast in the wee hours of the morning,” Everhart said with the hoarse gruffness she’d come to expect from him. What she did not expect was the way his gaze shifted to her mouth.

She blinked. He was impossibly close. His breath was sweetly scented with cloves and cinnamon as if he’d been drinking mulled wine. The firelight caught the growth of golden whiskers along his jaw, his chin, and lining the edge of his upper lip. A wild impulse to brush her fingertips over those short hairs rushed through her.

She managed to tamp it down when she saw his lips compress in a line. Lifting her gaze to his, she noted the blue-green intensity had returned. He was either going to shake her or scold her. She wanted neither.

Bewitching?
Hardly. “I had no intention of doing so.”

Everhart scrutinized her face quite thoroughly, as if searching for evidence to support his statement. “Your hair is down.”

Unsteady from the oddness of this exchange, Calliope tilted her head, hoping to find understanding at this new viewpoint. She didn’t. However, she did note that his lashes were quite long, and darker too, like his brows. “The strands are rather fine and tend to escape their confines.”