The Viscount Always Knocks Twice (Heart of Enquiry Book 4) (3 page)

Hurly-burly… hoyden… never land a husband…
The smirking glances of the other debutantes, her family’s worried expressions…

A muffled sound escaped Carlisle. The past faded, everything narrowing to the incendiary present: the cad was
laughing
at her. Mortification met fury and combusted.

“Don’t you dare make fun of me,” she said through clenched teeth.

His wide shoulders shook.

She took a step closer, jabbed a finger at him. “I’m warning you.
Stop laughing
.”

He held his big hands up in defense. “Or what, Miss Kent?” Mockery glinted in his eyes. “You’ll spell me into submission?”

Red saturated her vision. Her hands acted of their own volition, shooting upward, planting on his chest. They gave a shove—and time suddenly slowed. She had the sensation of watching from the outside as Carlisle stumbled, surprise rippling across his face as he lost his footing in a puddle of champagne, his large body falling backward like a felled tree…

The thudding splash brought her to her senses. In stupefied horror, she took in Carlisle sitting on his behind in the fountain. Blood-red champagne rained merrily over his head and shoulders.

Gadzooks, what have I done?

She took a halting step toward him… stopped at the hellfire raging in his eyes.

He growled, “Get out of here.
Now
.”

Panic made her obey. She dashed out the back of the grove, slipping between two potted ferns, walk-running until she reached the safety of the crowd. Like a criminal, she continued to sneak glances behind her, her heart thumping and mind whirling with the latest calamity she’d caused.

Chapter Two

Richard Murray, Viscount Carlisle, jolted awake. Angry voices sounded… some fracas in the street. As Cheapside’s thoroughfare was just a few blocks away, such disturbances were not unusual, but it didn’t make them any less annoying. Richard stared through the dimness at a crack in the ceiling, his mood darkening further when he realized that he sported, at present, a raging morning cockstand.

With an aggrieved sigh, he sat up. The bedclothes slipped down his bare torso, bunching at his waist and catching on his erection. Shoving his hands through his hair, he raised his knees, resting his elbows there and willing the insistent throbbing of his groin to subside.

“Insolent little baggage,” he muttered. “This is all her fault.”

He had no doubt that Miss Violet Kent was responsible for the state of his mind and body. Regarding the former, what man wouldn’t be furious at being assaulted—
pushed
into a bloody fountain and by a mere chit at that? Under normal circumstances, her little tap wouldn’t have budged him, but she’d taken him by surprise and then he’d slipped in that goddamned puddle…

Embarrassment scalded his gut. In all honesty, the fact that a close encounter with a female had resulted in him emerging a fool should come as no surprise. In his dictionary, women were synonymous with trouble. Miss Lucinda Belton and Lady Audrey Keane had taught him that lesson long ago. In fact, they’d schooled him so well that he’d avoided entanglements with respectable ladies altogether.

Whenever he required female companionship, he purchased it. A simple exchange and one in which both parties left satisfied. In bed, he dealt with women just fine.

Outside of bed, however, they were a damned nuisance. All he’d wanted was for Violet Kent to leave his brother alone: was that too much to ask? Instead, she’d made him the laughingstock of the party.

Well, he’d refused to give the
ton
the blood they wanted, the satisfaction of seeing his humiliation. He’d exited the gilded arena as if he weren’t dripping with champagne. As if his bloody boots weren’t squishing with every step. He’d walked out of there as if nothing had been out of the ordinary, and he’d managed that by focusing on varied and creative ways of retribution.

Bending Violet Kent over his knee, for instance.

Unfortunately, that led to his second—and persistently throbbing—problem.

He ought to have let her get doused by the fountain, he thought savagely. That would have served the little romp right. But, oh no, he’d had to obey his instinct to pull her out of harm’s way. The resulting jolt of lust had been his own damned fault.

He chalked it up to animal urges. What red-blooded man wouldn’t respond to the wriggling of a pertly rounded derriere against his groin? It was only primal instinct that had caused the lurid image to blaze in his head: of bending Miss Kent over the nearest surface, tossing up her cheerful yellow skirts, spreading her sleek thighs and…

He glanced down; to his disgust, his shaft now tented the sheet.

Just bloody perfect.

Throwing off the bedcovers, he stalked over to the table holding the basin and ewer, grimacing as his aroused flesh bobbed heavily with every step. He splashed icy water onto his face and, gripping the edges of the rickety washstand, waited for the room’s drafty chill to cool his blood. Although there was a more appealing way of discharging the problem, he refused to yield to the primitive impulse.

Self-discipline and rationality were his ruling principles. From experience, he’d learned to distrust his emotional reactions when it came to the opposite sex and relied instead on his intellect to guide his decisions. Despite his body’s inexplicable reaction to Miss Kent, he told himself he had only one objective pertaining to the chit: to keep her out of his brother’s life.

The thought of Wickham smothered the remnants of his arousal. Knots tightened in Richard’s gut as he yanked on a tattered robe. His younger brother knew nothing of restraint and was infinitely susceptible to the dangers of the opposite sex. And Wick was up to his ears in hot water already.

For Wick was in debt—and this time, Richard hadn’t the coin to pay it off. Wick’s only hope of staying afloat was marrying an heiress. To that end, Richard had spent no small effort in securing a lifeboat for his brother. He’d paved the way with Alfred Turbett, a wealthy merchant. All Wick had to do was take that last step and propose to the man’s daughter.

Which Wick wouldn’t do if he remained mesmerized by Violet Kent.

Richard was intimately acquainted with Miss Kent’s type, all right. She was a shallow flirt who waltzed her way through life with no care for consequences. She thrived on male attention, gave no damn about anything but herself and her own pleasure. The brazen minx would have Wick wrapped around her little finger—and then, when her fun was done, she’d toss him away like last season’s slippers.

Over my dead body
, Richard thought fiercely.

He rang for Bartlett; the valet was one of the few servants he retained in this small house he rented. Reduced circumstances had made such economies necessary. He was not a man to live beyond his means; if only he could say the same of his brother.

He had just sat down for breakfast in the small and shabby parlor when Wickham sauntered in. The latter was still dressed in last evening’s clothing—typical, seeing as the young rakehell never went to bed before dawn. Also typical was the fact that despite whatever debauchery Wick had been engaged in, he still managed to emerge looking like a Greek god.

Shadows accented Wick’s long-lashed hazel eyes, the hollows beneath his sculpted cheekbones. His golden brown curls were fashionably rumpled. Their mama had been a famous beauty in her day, and Wick took after her in looks and temperament—the opposite of Richard, who resembled their father and all the viscounts before him.

A stroll through the family gallery showed a line of dark, swarthy men with the hulking bodies of peasants and the glowering disposition of Hephaestus. Unfortunately, like that humble god of the smithy, they were also attracted to their natural opposites—dazzling, vibrant Aphrodites—which had led to a family legacy of disastrous unions.

Staid and vivacious never made for a good match.

“No need to get up on my account, old boy,” Wick said. “Thought I’d stop by and join you for a spot of breakfast. Though I had the devil’s time getting here. Don’t know what you were thinking leasing this hellhole.”

“It’s Cheapside, not the Ninth Circle—” A pungent odor tickled Richard’s nostrils, and he sneezed. Twice. “Holy hell, what is that smell?”

“What smell?”

Eyes watering, Richard said, “The noxious odor that suggests you rolled in a field of lily of the valley before diving into a vat of musk.”

Wick sniffed at his jacket. “Ah, that. Must have rubbed off on me. It’s French,” he added in lofty tones, “and expensive.”

Seeing the smudges of rouge on his brother’s collar, Richard said dourly, “Are you referring to the perfume or the tart who wore it?”

“Both,” Wick said with a smirk.

Given the strain between him and Wick of late, Richard refrained from pointing out that costly trollops, French or not, were well beyond Wick’s means. A lecture on fiscal responsibility would only alienate his brother further. Besides, he remained wary of his brother’s purpose in calling.

Wick left before the mishap,
he told himself.
It’s possible that he doesn’t know what happened.

Going to the sideboard, Wick let out an aggrieved sigh. “Kippers and eggs
again
? How’re such meager offerings supposed to fuel a fellow for the day?”

“If you don’t like it, don’t eat it.” Richard forked up eggs.

Setting down a plate piled high, Wick took an adjacent seat at the table. “So you don’t look any worse for the wear.”

Damnation.
He decided to bluff his way through. “And why should I?”

Wick gave him an innocent look. “Because of the
splash
you made last night?”

Heat crawled up Richard’s jaw. “It was an accident.”

“Accidentally got tap-hackled, did you?”

“I wasn’t drunk.”

“Then how the bloody hell did you take a tumble into a
fountain
?” his sibling chortled.

Devil take Violet Kent.
Richard’s face burned. Yet he couldn’t reveal the truth of what had happened. First of all, he’d slit his own throat before admitting that he’d been downed by a female—and a slip of a miss at that. Second, his sense of honor precluded him from incriminating a lady, which was precisely why he’d instructed her to flee the scene of the crime.

Beneath his seething anger, he also felt an uneasy flicker of… guilt. In a way, he supposed he owed it to her to protect her reputation after the gossip he’d inadvertently started about her. He regretted that his private conversation with his friend Blackwood had been overheard and circulated by the wags. His worry over Wickham had prompted him to speak brashly, causing Miss Kent unintentional harm.

Her face rose in his imagination: the high, creamy slope of her cheeks and her tip-tilted eyes, which were the rich, tawny shade of his favorite whiskey. Her bee-stung mouth was too generous for her face, the bottom lip particularly full. A retroussé nose added to her air of feminine mischief and merriment.

In and of themselves, her features were not beautiful, but together they exuded an undeniable appeal, a vividness that made it difficult for one to look away. She wasn’t Aphrodite, but Aglaea, one of the Three Graces, the embodiment of glowing good health and vitality. Grudgingly, Richard had to admit that Violet Kent’s attractions went beyond skin deep, stirring a dangerous, primal response in him. And if her charms were not lost on him—a sensible, level-headed man—then what untold peril did she pose to his hapless brother?

“Never mind the bloody fountain,” Richard said abruptly. “There are more important matters to discuss. How did things go with Miss Turbett last eve?”

In a blink, Wick’s merriment turned to sullenness. Richard bit back a sigh. He ought to be used to his brother’s lightning shifts in mood by now, but somehow he wasn’t. Somehow in his mind Wickham was still the tow-headed boy who’d followed him everywhere and took his word as gospel. The younger brother who’d worshipped him—and whom he’d protected in turn.

But ever since their papa’s death six years ago, things had changed. Wickham had transformed from a fun-loving lad to a wild and reckless rake. The worst of it was that any advice or solutions Richard had given had only made Wick surly and resentful… until all possibility of rational discourse was gone.

Thus, Richard had resorted to leveraging the last means available to him. He’d threatened to cut off Wick’s quarterly stipend—and only source of income—if Wick didn’t take gainful steps toward discharging his debt of ten thousand pounds. Owed to a
moneylender
, for God’s sake.

Richard’s temples throbbed. If only he hadn’t been preoccupied by the financial quagmire left by their father, he could have kept a better eye on Wick. Stopped the whelp from frittering away an astronomical sum and jeopardizing his future in the process—

“I danced with Miss Turbett once. She had all the charm of a dead fish,” Wick said, his chin lifting belligerently, “and the conversation of one, too.”

“It’s not her charm or conversation you’re after: it’s her twenty thousand pounds. Devil take it, you agreed to this.” Richard’s jaw clenched in frustration. “I met with Turbett and cleared your path to courting his daughter. You should count yourself fortunate that he’s willing to take you on for the connection to our family. Miss Turbett’s fortune is your only hope for salvation.”

“I don’t want to marry that antidote of a female, and you can’t make me.”

“By Jove, stop acting like a child.” Richard’s grip on his temper slipped. “Don’t you comprehend the danger you’re in? Your moneylender isn’t some merchant who will wait patiently at the tradesmen’s entrance to get paid. Garrity is a
cutthroat
: if you don’t make good on your debt, you’ll be parting with more than your good name. He’ll take his pound of flesh—literally.”

Wick paled but recovered quickly.

“This is all your fault,” he shot back, angrily swiping jam onto his bread. “If you’d gone into the canal venture with me, we’d both be rich as Croesus. I could pay off my debts, and the family estate wouldn’t be teetering on the brink of ruin. But you refused, and I hadn’t the coin to go at it alone. Therefore,
you
brought this situation upon our heads.” He pointed his knife at Richard, the initials of his gold signet ring flashing with accusation. “And Mama agrees with me.”