Lavinia turned from the window and considered picking up the chamber pot and tossing it at his head.
Of all the infuriating, horrible, dreadful knaves!
Threatening to climb up into her bedchamber.
Why it was a ruinous notion. Not that he seemed to care. Apparently, climbing into a lady’s private room was nothing to him.
No more than the proper care of peonies.
Or jackets, she suddenly recalled, having had the nagging suspicion she’d forgotten something. Oh, bother, he’d lose that button if it wasn’t promptly sewn back on.
Cursing that weak moment when she’d agreed to his schemes—that, and her abhorrence of missing buttons—she dug around in her drawer for her sewing kit, and with it in hand, caught up her shawl and readied herself to hear him out.
And then point out the flaws in whatever madcap scheme he’d suddenly devised.
No, she wouldn’t be lulled this time. She’d stick to her list. Everything had gone wrong the moment she’d deviated from her carefully wrought plans.
She only hoped five minutes would be enough time¸ for if she was being honest, it wasn’t so much that she didn’t trust Mr. Rowland—more to the point she didn’t trust herself.
Not with him.
With his charming ways, that grin that took her breath away, the merry way he looked at the world.
Looked at her.
Lavinia brushed at the gooseflesh rising on her arms. Willed her heart to resume a normal, level rhythm.
Yet when she got outside, Mr. Rowland was no longer standing among the peonies. Good news for the budding blossoms but leaving her with a darkened yard to search.
“Bother the man,” she muttered as she quietly and warily went down the steps.
And when she got to the end of the graveled path, she paused, having finally spotted him, standing in the shadows, his face turned to the house beyond the garden wall.
Lord Wakefield’s residence.
She couldn’t see what Louisa saw in the bellicose viscount or his dreary house. But then again, Louisa also loved Hannibal.
Certainly there was no accounting for another’s sensibilities. Or the lack thereof.
Speaking of lacking in sensibilities, she opened her mouth to begin the lecture she’d been compiling since she’d left the sanctuary of her room, but the censorious words stopped in her throat.
If she was willing to admit such a thing, she might have acknowledged that it was her heart that put a stopper in her ire.
For of all the times she’d looked upon Alaster Rowland—bosky at Almack’s, rakishly bowing to her at Monsieur Ponthieux’s, grinning as he’d driven up in the carriage today, winking at her as he’d been about to climb up the drainpipe, she’d never thought of him as anything but devilishly carefree.
The epitome of a rake. Knavishly handsome, without a care in the world. No thought other than to his own pleasures and his own desires.
That is until she saw him standing before her in his shirtsleeves and a bit disheveled from his scrapped climb up the drainpipe.
His expression laid low every conviction she held about him. For there on his face was a mixture of emotions, so raw, so deeply personal that she nearly gasped.
No amount of censure could match the pain she saw in his eyes. The regret. The loss. Deep, personal loss.
All of it played out in the crease of his brows, the hard set of his jaw. But it was his eyes, pleading and searching as they looked at the dark house beyond Lord Charleton’s garden wall, that told the story.
If that wasn’t wrenching enough, her own reaction left her trembling.
Go to him. A voice from deep within her soul nudged. He needs you.
She couldn’t even argue the fact. She’d never seen a man so lost in his own reverie. In a place so bleak that she wondered if she were to wrap her arms around him, lend him her own warmth, would she be able to pull him back from the abyss upon which he seemed to be teetering.
Be able to find some way to bring solace to the pain in his expression.
Suddenly, the path beneath her feet became a crossroads of sorts.
If she dared, if she went to him, put her hand upon his sleeve, everything would change.
For this would be a very different sort of dance. A pledge of sorts.
Because now she knew the truth.
Inside this knave, this beast of a man, this wretched and intolerable rake, beat a broken heart.
Oh, she knew a broken heart only too well.
She also knew the cure for such an ailment.
One she dared not offer. Not to this knave.
For that would be her ruin.
Tuck had watched Livy turn from the window, and he’d turned as well, only to find himself looking over at the house across the garden wall.
Piers’s house.
He didn’t know how he felt now when he looked at it. For in the last few hours, everything had changed.
He’d changed.
He walked across his uncle’s lawn, toward the house he knew as intimately as he knew his own rooms—and tamped down a familiar bit of envy.
Pierson Stratton, the fifth Viscount Wakefield, had everything, in Tuck’s estimation. A title. Wealth. A comfortable London house. Profitable estates in the country.
While Tuck . . . well, he had his wits and an inheritance that might or might not be his one day.
An inheritance that went to him because his uncle had yet to have a son, and there was no one else between them.
Growing up, Tuck had never thought much about the differences in their stations—his and Piers’s—until the day Piers had come into his inheritance, and a gulf of sorts had opened between them.
Not so much on Piers’s part, but Tuck suddenly had seen how very different their circumstances would be—a realization that had only been magnified on the night before they were to buy their commissions.
Those long, dark hours had changed everything.
It had begun weeks earlier with a reckless decision—he, Poldie and Piers—all vowing to join the army in Spain. To fight Napoleon. To win for King and country.
“And,” as Poldie had drunkenly added, “to put a good thousand miles between us and every busybody, matchmaking mother bent on pushing her cowhanded daughters into our path.”
They’d all had a grand laugh over it.
Lord Charleton had reluctantly given his blessing (and the money to buy the commission) to Tuck—claiming he didn’t like the idea of his only heir running off to war, but for the first time in his life, Tuck had seen a hint of pride in his uncle’s expression.
And he’d fully intended to do all of it. Buy his commission. Go to war. Fight with Poldie and Piers.
Make his uncle proud. Be the heir worthy of the old and venerable barony that had been in his family for centuries.
And then it had all gone wrong.
He shook his head at the memory, trying yet again to dislodge it, leave it behind once and for all.
But it clung to him stubbornly, refusing to let go, towing behind him like a great anchor.
He hadn’t gone. The money for his commission wiped out. His friends sailing away without him. Piers furious and Poldie, dear Poldie, forgiving. Endlessly forgiving.
If only Tuck could do the same for himself.
A crunch on the gravel pulled Tuck out of the darkness of the past.
There, he spied Miss Tempest stealing back toward the house.
“Livy,” he called softly, “please don’t leave.”
She stilled, then slowly turned around.
Nothing could have prepared him for what happened next.
For there in the garden stood the most beguilingly innocent creature he’d ever seen. Her mahogany hair lay in a thick braid, falling over one shoulder. Her plain gown and fair countenance gave her the appearance of some tempting creature Shakespeare might have conjured—a rare and perfect nymph sent to tempt a mortal man astray.
If there was anyone in London alive who knew how to be led astray, it was Tuck.
And this was Livy. His Livy.
His heart made some odd clutch. A rusty, unfamiliar lurch.
No, he reminded himself, he mustn’t think of her as Livy. Rather as Miss Tempest. All sensible and proper and practical. With a list.
A bloody list! That was it, think about that wretched list of hers. If that wasn’t enough to send a fellow shying for high ground, he didn’t know what would.
Yet as he looked again at the reserved creature standing there, even her demmed list seemed to have its endearing points. And as Tuck struggled to find the right words to say, even the heavens above seemed to grind to a stop, offering up one last whisper.
Pretty is not what you want . . .
Then again, Brody hadn’t seen her like this.
For that matter, how was it that he, Tuck, had not seen this? The luster of her hair—even in the dim light, the curve of her cheek, the rich, deep color of her lips, the starry light of her eyes.
His gut tightened, and he was struck—flabbergasted really—by how tempting Lavinia Tempest appeared.
If only he could trot her down to White’s right now—there wasn’t a single man who wouldn’t demand her hand in marriage.
They’d all want her.
Right now, any man who looked upon her—standing there like a doe caught at the edge of a meadow—would hand over Tuck’s full portion of the wager and not care a wit about the state of his boots for the next fifty years.
Would make her his Livy.
No longer Tuck’s. Never again his.
Tuck wanted to celebrate, and yet his gut clenched as he came to the sudden realization that at the end of all this, she would belong to another.
Oh, he’d known that all along, but why did it matter now?
Because that someone would not be him. No more dancing lessons, no more lectures on propriety.
No more late night meetings in the garden.
Nor would he be treated to the sight of those fair, ripe lips turning up in a rare smile—one meant just for him.
Like when he’d danced with her at Ponthieux’s. Or today, when she’d waltzed in his arms.
“Mr. Rowland, are you attending me?” she was asking. “You didn’t strike your head when you climbed down, did you?”
His gaze rose to meet hers, and whatever she saw reflected in his eyes startled her.
For her eyes widened, and her mouth opened slightly—perhaps to protest, or maybe to acquiesce. Whatever her reaction, she shivered a bit and took a step back.
“Perhaps this was a bad idea,” she said hastily, turning to leave. “I should go back inside.”
“Go?” he reached out and caught hold of her hand, stopping her escape. “No, you mustn’t. I haven’t told you my plans.”
“Ah, yes, your plans. The ones you lured me out here with.” She glanced down at his hand holding hers and back up at him, her brow arching enough to get him to release her.
Reluctantly so.
“Lured. Hardly.” He glanced around and realized this was rather the perfect scenario for a luring. The secluded corner in the garden. The household behind them all dark and quiet.
How easy it was to imagine her in his arms, looking up at him with those wide, innocent eyes, and whispering the words she said the other day in his uncle’s study.
I’ve never been kissed.
Oh, that wouldn’t take long to rectify.
“You spoke of a plan?” she prodded. She with the list of the perfect characteristics of a gentleman. She with her proper this and that.
Certainly, there wasn’t a single column where his name might be added. Not even in pencil.
“Oh, yes, my plan,” he said, tucking his hands behind his back, where they would stay out of mischief. “I know someone who found themselves in much your circumstances.”
“Ruined and an object of scorn?”
“Beautiful and overlooked,” he corrected.
Her response was a spinsterly harrumph.
No Spanish coin for Miss Tempest. So he continued, “This lady”—a term he was using loosely—“was able to elevate herself to a perfectly respectable marriage and place in society.”
Yes, it was the perfect plan. One that would put her far from his sudden, unnerving temptation to have her.
Keep her all to himself. His Livy.
“And?” she prodded again. As if the answer wasn’t self-evident.
“And what?”
“There must be an ‘and’ or a ‘but’ in all this. For if it was above board and entirely respectable, might not you have thought of it before this?”
“Yes, well, her means . . . well, they aren’t entirely—”
“Proper?”
Of course, Miss Tempest had the right word at the ready. Conveniently, it was also her favorite one.
“Well, not precisely. Let’s just say her methods aren’t exactly taught in your average Bath school.”
At this, the lady melted a little. “Oh, if only Louisa and I could have gone to school in Bath, but Papa quite forbade it.”
Or couldn’t afford it, Tuck mused. For hadn’t his uncle been rather circumspect before about the Tempest sisters’ dowries.
Which usually meant there wasn’t much to be had. Besides, what little Tuck did know of their father, Sir Ambrose, he was merely a scholar—though one of some note—but given Tuck’s experience with that sort, he knew it was a polite way of saying the fellow wasn’t suited for much else but nosing about dusty books.
“The trappings of a Bath education are overrated,” he told her. “This lady did well enough without so much as setting a foot inside one of those schools, and so can you if you are willing to give yourself over to her tutelage.”
Miss Tempest appeared thoroughly skeptical.
He continued to press his case. “I believe with her guidance, you would rise quickly above your current situation.”
“How?”
“You needn’t sound so suspicious,” he told her. Not that he blamed her. The entire plan was madness, but other than carting her down to White’s right now and auctioning her off to the highest bidder, he didn’t have many other choices. “But if you want to follow your sister to the altar, you had best seize this opportunity.”
“Are you mad or exceedingly bosky?” Lavinia leaned forward and sniffed, catching a whiff of the sweet scent of Madeira. “Bosky!” Oh, whatever had she been thinking coming down here to listen to his promises and exaggerations. “My sister is not getting married. We are going home.” She turned to go back inside.
“Wait! It’s true,” he told her. “My cousin is madly in love with your sister.”
“Oh, I don’t believe it—” she began, glancing over the wall at the dark house across the lane.
Certainly, she knew Louisa had developed a tendre for the viscount—her sister had said as much the other night—but she’d also been quite adamant on the point that her feelings were not returned.
But if what Mr. Rowland was saying was true . . .
A spark of something flared to life inside her.
“However do you know all this?” she asked. No, make that demanded. “From what I understand, you and the viscount aren’t exactly on speaking terms.”
There was something in Mr. Rowland’s expression that flickered at this, flinched as if she’d poked at an old wound.
Whatever had happened between the two of them? she wondered as she remembered Lady Aveley’s words the other day.
The pair of them—Piers and Tuck—couldn’t be separated. Trouble, both of them. How their mothers despaired.
“Piers and I just finished a very illuminating supper.” And he told her what he’d learned from the cook’s chatty niece and nephew.
That the Viscount Wakefield was very much in love with Louisa.
She made her way over to the bench and sat down, feeling suddenly both light-headed and bowled over. It was all too much to believe—though given her own current schism with Louisa—obviously there was plenty between the two of them that had gone unsaid.
That, and Lavinia realized she’d been so busy with her own concerns that she truly hadn’t been paying much attention to Louisa.
Meanwhile, Tuck continued on. “Trust me. You won’t be returning to Kittleton—”
“Kempton,” she corrected absently.
“Yes, yes, that place any time soon. Not if Piers has any say in the matter. He’s over here right now explaining himself to my uncle. He was summoned.”
“Over with Lord Charlton?” Lavinia shook her head. “No, no, I hardly see how that’s possible, for His Lordship summoned Louisa down to the library not fifteen minutes ago.” Then Lavinia paused as she saw that request in an entirely new light. “Oh, my heavens, if the viscount is there, and Louisa is there . . . you don’t think—”
“I do,” Tuck said, grinning from ear to ear.
“Are you suggesting my sister and the viscount have been—”
“Improper?” he posed. “Most definitely.”
“Oh, good heavens,” Lavinia sputtered. For certainly that was the only reason she could think of for such a hasty match, but she hadn’t wanted to believe it.
Yet hadn’t Louisa said as much the other night? After the fiasco at Almack’s? That the viscount had driven her home in his carriage. Alone.
Her gaze flew to look at the dark house across the lane. Oh, this was ruinous.
“I would wager Falshaw’s wages for the remainder of the year that your sister will be the Viscountess Wakefield before the week is out.”
“You should pay the poor man his wages instead of wagering them,” Lavinia remarked tartly even as she knew this news should make her deliriously happy—Louisa to be married. But it seemed so very ironic that her sister—who had not wanted to be matched, who hadn’t wanted to come to London in the first place—was now to be wed.
“You are too concerned for my valet’s welfare,” he teased. “Falshaw soldiers on very well, wages or no.”
“I would think he would prefer not to—soldier on, that is.” She sighed a bit. “I know I would.”
“What’s this?” Tuck asked, sitting down beside her and tipping his head so he could see her downcast face. “Your sister is as good as betrothed. You should be happy. I know I am delighted.”
One glance at him revealed a bright light in his eyes that she hadn’t seen before. In fact, he looked overjoyed.
For a moment, she wondered why—why was Tuck Rowland, of all people, so happy to see a fellow bachelor caught in the parson’s mousetrap?
Perhaps because it wasn’t him being led down the aisle.
Setting a nagging suspicion that there was more to Tuck’s bon vivant than met the eye, she tried to rally. “Oh, yes, it is most wonderful,” she managed, hoping that hid how at odds she felt over her sister’s good fortune—no, make that unexpected and meteoric rise in circumstances.
And when Louisa married—where would that leave her? Still in disgrace. Still ruined. And worst of all? Still a spinster. All alone.
Oh, it was unbearable.
She turned toward Mr. Rowland and told him the truth. “Yes, but I hardly see how this all helps me. Even if what you say is true, and Louisa is to be married, my situation remains unchanged, and it will be better for everyone if I just go home as planned.”
Livy turned to leave, and Tuck gaped after her. But not for long.
“I won’t hear of it,” he told her.
“I don’t believe it is your decision to make.”
“At least hear me out. ”
She shrugged. “I have heard your vague plan and hardly see how this woman can help me,” she told him, then continued toward the house.
Tuck knew women well enough to know when one had set her jaw and wasn’t going to listen, but when he jammed his hands into his pockets and his fingers curled around the button there, something else came to him. “You’ve hardly listened to my plans. It will take no more time than it will for you to sew on my button.” He held it up for her to see. “You’d be as guilty as Falshaw for sending me off in such a state of dishabille.”
It was a gross misstatement of the truth, but he knew her.
Miss Lavinia Tempest loved nice tidy lines and buttons all in a row. His missing button would put her carefully ordered world into a dangerous tilt toward the realm of the disheveled.
She turned around, her brow furrowing at the sight of it. “Oh, botheration.” She came back down the path and held out her hand. “Give it to me. As it is, I brought my sewing kit.”
And he would have expected nothing less of her. “How fortuitous for me,” he said as he handed the silver bit over and retrieved his discarded jacket.
She immediately tsked, tsked over the state of his wardrobe. “Oh, good heavens,” she muttered as she smoothed the wool with her hands and examined the button band. Having surveyed the task before her, she sighed and sat back down on the bench, drawing out her small sewing kit.
“Won’t your valet be put out if I do his work?” she asked.
“Falshaw?” Tuck shook his head. “He’s a most excellent fellow but not the most adept with a needle and thread.”
Harrumph. “He doesn’t sound like a very capable valet. Perhaps you should—”
Tuck knew that tone and look. It said all too clearly she was about to start managing his life much as her sister had with Piers’s household . . . Though not for the worse, he had to admit. After all, Louisa Tempest had put the spark back into the viscount’s house and life.
But female meddling was still meddling to Tuck’s way of thinking, so he was quick to respond. “Don’t you dare fire him—like your sister did Piers’s cook. I can’t do without Falshaw.”
“As I understand it, my sister did the viscount a tremendous favor getting rid of that horrible cook of his. Why, that dreadful Mr. Bludger is wanted by His Majesty’s navy for desertion.”
“Yes, well, I rather need my horrible valet. And I can assure you, Falshaw is wanted by no one but me.”
“He isn’t taking very good care of you,” she told him as she threaded a needle.
“I suppose not, but even if you were to try to remove him from my service, he wouldn’t go.”
She glanced up. “That loyal?”
“Oh, no, not at all. Rather, I owe him nearly a year’s wages.”
“Poor fellow,” she told him.
Tuck was under no misunderstanding that her sympathies were all with Falshaw and not his poor employer.
She caught hold of the button band and poked the needle into the spot where the button belonged, digging the needle into the fabric and making a quick knot.
He drew back a bit. “Rather glad my coat is off.”
“Why is that?” she asked.
“You look like you want to stab me,” he teased.
She made a snorting noise.
“Whatever is so funny?”
“If I wanted to do that, you’d already have the wound,” she replied.
Tuck laughed. Tart-tongued minx. And if he wasn’t mistaken, she was smiling.
“You are rather deft with that needle,” he said, watching her work. He’d never paid much attention to such things, but she did seem to know what she was doing.
“I like sewing,” she told him, slanting a glance in his direction. “I usually redo most of my gowns and Louisa’s as well, though she never cares if her gown is the latest stare or has the right color of rosettes.”
“Scandalous,” he agreed. “The wrong color of rosettes could consign a lady to the furthest reaches of society.”
“You are a dreadful tease,” she told him. “Actually, there is much that can be done to a gown to make it over with the right touches for very little expense.”
“Truly?” He shook his head in wonder, thinking of all the times Piers had complained about his sisters’ bills. “Now I wish I had a pen and paper.”
“Whatever for?”
“Why to begin drafting my list of your qualifications—”
“You rogue,” she said, swatting his arm.
“Hardly. I don’t see why you can keep a list and I cannot.”
“It doesn’t sound proper,” she told him.
“You haven’t seen my list,” he shot back, leaning back on the bench, his hands folded together behind his head. “What if I happen upon a gentleman who matches your exacting expectations? If I had a list at the ready, I could easily rattle off your qualities to see if he is interested.”
“I hardly see—”
“I have my first three entries at the ready. Economical. Handy with a needle and thread—”
“When you say all that, I sound rather dull,” she shot back.
“Oh, Livy, you are never dull,” he told her.
Her lashes fluttered for a moment as if she were taken aback by his words, but she recovered quickly. “You mustn’t call me that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s overly familiar,” she told him.
“And let me guess, not proper.” He laughed. “I think when a lady has ruined the better part of a gentleman’s collection of handkerchiefs, it allows him certain rights.”
“When I meet this gentleman, I will remember that,” she teased back. Then, as if remembering herself, she went back to inspecting her handiwork. She took one last stitch and tied her thread off. Pulling her snips from her bag, she quickly and efficiently cut the thread.
If only all life’s tangles could be finished off so—with a quick snip.
“Now for the remainder of my list,” he said, sitting up as if he were a clerk in the court. “How do you stand on cats?”
Her nose wrinkled. “Have you met that beast my sister insists on keeping?”
“I don’t think that animal counts as a cat,” he replied, making a tick mark on his imaginary list. “I suppose I should put a grand Mayfair mansion on this list.”
To his surprise, she shook her head. “I would prefer to live in the country.”
“You would?” This rather surprised him.
Lavinia nodded. “I miss the grass. The quiet of the evenings. Being able to go for a long walk.”
“That sounds lovely,” he said. “My uncle has a country house—a wonderful old Tudor pile. I’ve been to it a few times. I’ve never understood why he would live in London when he could live there.”
“But you like it,” she said, smiling shyly at him. “Why?”
“Much the same reasons—it smells good, it has wide meadows and paths—all perfect for good amble or a nice ride. And . . .”
“And?”
He leaned closer. “I’ve always wanted a dog. One that isn’t fond of cats.”
They both laughed.
“So a house in the country it is,” he noted, glancing down at the imaginary list in his hands. “There, that about does it.”
She glanced over at him and asked almost shyly—well shyly for Lavinia, “Isn’t there anything else that should be on your list—” Her brows rose noticeably, as if prodding him to offer up his further thoughts on her qualifications. “Perhaps something romantic?”
“Romantic?” He shook his head. “What is all this? I thought you rejected such notions.”
“Normally I would. But perhaps I have been mistaken on that account.”
“And what do you suggest I say?”
She carefully put away her sewing implements, the needle, thread and snips as she thought about it. When she finished, she glanced up. “That I am not opposed to the notion.”
Tuck couldn’t help himself. He laughed. “Ah, yes, that will mark you for an incurable romantic.”
Her nose notched up a bit. “Hardly. I just want a little bit of romance. Since I haven’t any experience in the matter, how am I to know what I would like or wouldn’t. Or how much is the right amount? What if there are expectations?” She paused, then after steeling herself with a deep breath, she finally added, “How can I know if I’ve never been kissed?”