Chapter 4
Never trust a rumpled gentleman. They are invariably rogues, scoundrels, and cads to be avoided.
Mrs. Matcher
A Lady’s Guide to a Gentleman’s Heart
Nearly twenty minutes later, sometime between dismissing his valet and removing his cravat and jacket, Heath was besieged by the familiar feeling that he was forgetting something. The same sense he’d had the day his brother Lawrence had raced Sheldon and died, that something was wrong even before the world had been flipped upside down by grief.
Seated at the edge of his bed, with one boot removed and his fingers set to work on the other, he frowned.
What in blazes was it?
“No doubt it was your hasty flight from the minx,” he mumbled under his breath, struggling with the boot.
After all, he’d left in such haste.
And yet—he paused again.
No, it was that sensation that occasionally came upon him. It had been there at the oddest times, oddly prophetic in its accuracy. The day his younger brother Lawrence had died. The moment Connell had sent ’round a note and then hightailed it from London, breaking his betrothal to Lady Emilia.
“You’re being an arse,” he muttered, giving his head a shake. “Aside from seeing the young lady, nothing out of the ordinary is different…” His words trailed off. His heart hammered peculiarly. “The note,” he whispered. Heath patted his chest and then searched for his jacket.
Shoving to his feet, he was across the room in three great strides. He grabbed the jacket and proceeded to fish around the inside of the silk lining.
Oh, bloody hell. His gut churned. It had to be here. It had to be here. “Be here. Be here. Be here.” It proved a useless mantra.
Nothing.
Dropping to his knees, Heath crawled around the floor in search of that damned scrap.
Where was it? Where was it?
And bloody hell, why was there a damned Aubusson carpet with a bloody intricate pattern that obscured everything?
Dragging his hands along every corner of the floor, it took barely any time to discern that the list wasn’t there.
Which could only mean… Somewhere between his unexpected meeting with Lady Emilia and his trek to his rooms, he’d lost it.
Oh, bloody, bloody hell.
Spinning on his heel, Heath took off running, racing the same path he’d taken earlier. Searching as he went. His gaze on the floor, he collided headfirst with a wall.
With a grunt, Heath staggered back, landing hard on his arse. Rubbing his head, he glowered up at his youngest—and entirely too amused—brother, Sheldon. Or Graham. Or whatever the hell he wanted to be called these days.
“You seem distracted,” Sheldon drawled, holding a hand out.
Taking that offer, Heath jumped up, then registered his ever-vexing brother’s attention on his feet. More specifically—
“You are barefoot.”
His bare feet. Yes, his brother would notice as much. But then, no gentleman generally went around sans boots, particularly Heath. “Stockinged feet are hardly the same,” Heath said defensively, dusting his palms over lapels… that weren’t there.
“You are, uh… missing a jacket, brother,” Sheldon pointed out, remarkably deadpan.
Heat splotched Heath’s cheeks. He couldn’t very well go about saying that he, the reliable son, had gone and lost a damned list given to him by their mother. A list pertaining to her goddaughter, and there was, in fact, a houseful of guests. His stomach dropped. Dead. I am dead. “There were…”
Sheldon quirked an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Matters of import that I needed to attend to,” he neatly substituted. Heath made to step around his brother, but Sheldon slid into his path, preventing that escape. Blast and damn. He didn’t have time to stand here indulging his brother’s humor. He clenched his jaw to keep from saying as much. Frantic worry over that missing list aside, Heath was the one who’d let his ducal guard slip, yet again, that night. “What is it, Sheldon?” he asked with remarkable calm.
“Given that you’re half naked, I’d dare say whatever has you rushing around must be a matter of grave importance.”
“It is of some importance.” Grave. It was absolutely grave. He made another sidestep.
His vexing sibling proved tenacious, locking steps with him yet again. “How important?”
Grave had been correct. He’d sooner lop off his arm than admit as much to his younger brother, who by the glimmer in his eyes was enjoying Heath’s circumstances entirely too much. “Important enough that I’d be better served elsewhere and not indulging your amusements here,” he said, bowing his head slightly. This time, when Heath stepped around Sheldon, his brother made no attempt to block his escape.
He’d made it no farther than three strides before his brother called out. “I don’t suppose this is what has you in such a frenzy?”
Heath spun back.
Leaning a lazy shoulder against the wall, Sheldon stood there with his arms folded and an all-too-familiar piece of vellum in his hands.
Any other time, he’d have been horrified that his scapegrace brother would be the one to find it. “Oh, bloody hell,” he breathed, charging over to claim that hated scrap of paper.
“You’re welcome,” Sheldon drawled as Heath ripped it from his fingers. “You should have a care with that. Perilous stuff when information finds itself in the wrong hands.”
Were there really any right hands, however, for that note? “Where did you find this?” he demanded, stuffing the scrap inside his—
Sheldon leaned forward. “This is where a jacket might prove helpful,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper.
“Oh, go to hell,” he muttered, and his brother laughed uproariously.
If he were one of those lords given to crudeness, this was certainly where Heath would begin turning a middle finger up at his younger sibling. “Where—?”
“You’ve my son to thank for discovering it.”
His stomach plummeted. “Frederick?” Who else might have seen that damning page?
“Alas, there is only one son, for now. Fortunate for you, he asked me to join him in the billiards room a short while ago.”
“The billiards room,” he echoed, his eyes briefly sliding closed. There was a God, after all. Their mother’s guests were still engaged in the evening’s round of eternal charades, as he’d come to refer to it as a boy, and therefore, no one…
No one… that was…
Except…
Pass. You see, no one would dare search for me here. It is, in fact, the last place I would be…
Oh, blast and damn. His eyes flew open, and Heath grabbed his brother by his lapels. “The billiards room,” he repeated, shaking him slightly. “Was there anyone else in there? A…” He glanced around quickly and spoke in a hushed whisper. “A…”
“Woman?” Sheldon neatly supplied. “As in the mysterious woman whom our mother was indiscreet enough to make a list about?” He waggled his eyebrows.
Damn his brother. He was having entirely too much fun with this. All of this. “Go to hell,” he said again quickly, releasing him.
His brother’s smile faded, taking all his earlier amusement with it. “There was no one there when we arrived. The note was just under the billiard table.”
Where he’d been playing when Lady Emilia had arrived and upended his game… and from there, his whole damned night. Though, in fairness, his mother was more responsible than anyone else. “You are certain?” he pressed.
“Certain there was no woman? Or about the location of the note?”
Heath gave him a sharp look, earning a sigh.
“Oh, very well. I’m certain on both scores. You do know you’re dreadfully straitlaced and becoming increasingly more so the older you get.”
“I’m not straitlaced.” He bristled. “I’m respectable. Honorable. Reliable.”
Sheldon leaned over. “Yes, so reliable that you went about losing a confidential list.”
And damn his younger brother for being correct… in this. He’d concede that and not an inch more. Heath glanced down at the object of all his woes this night, skimming it.
“Furthermore,” Sheldon said while Heath read that page, “all jesting aside, though it is certainly unsettling to lose it, there’s hardly anything identifying on it.”
“Other than Mother’s handwriting.”
“There’s that,” Sheldon conceded. “Many of the guests who’ve been assembled, however, have been brought forward as marital prospects for you.”
He winced. Yes, Heath had suspected as much. “But how many of those ladies break their fast at six o’clock?” he pressed, and his earlier panic returned.
His brother lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “My wife is also an early riser and dines before the other guests.”
Fair enough.
In a rare show of support, Sheldon tossed an arm around his shoulders and squeezed. “No one discovered it. They could have. But they did not.”
Breathing slowly between his teeth, Heath dusted a hand through his hair. Yes, having lost the note could have been calamitous, and yet, it had since been found… by his brother. It was an unfamiliar state for him to be in—making a misstep in front of… anyone. Heath found himself unnerved by the show of sibling solidarity.
“Mother really shouldn’t have put anything to paper.”
“Certainly not. But given that it was you, the ever-responsible, meticulous one,” Sheldon said dryly, without inflection, “she probably trusted that any instruction she gave you, in any form, would be safe.”
Yes, there was that. High expectations had been set not only by his parents but by every tutor who’d firmly instructed Heath on his responsibilities as ducal heir. Responsibilities that now included—he looked down at the note once more—entertaining Lady Emilia Aberdeen.
“Now, if I may suggest you seek out your rooms? By my estimation, the guests have another”—Sheldon consulted his timepiece—“twenty minutes or so of their evening’s entertainments.”
Folding the list into neat quadrants, Heath concentrated all his energies on that minute task. He attempted all the dignity one might muster after making a near-epic blunder. “Sheldon…”
“Graham,” his brother slipped in.
“Yes, Graham, then.” Defiant in everything, his younger brother had even claimed ownership of his middle name as his first. “I wanted to say…” He coughed into his fist. “That is… Thank—”
“You needn’t even finish those words,” his brother cut him off. “That is what brothers are for.”
That is what brothers are for. It was an interesting statement and avowal from two boys who’d once been friends, but had drifted apart after the death of their other brother. Managing a grateful nod, Heath hurried back toward his rooms. After Lawrence’s death racing Sheldon—nay Graham—every member of the Whitworth family had… been changed. And just as much, how they’d treated one another and behaved around one another… all that had changed, too. Lawrence’s passing had served as a reminder to his then-young self how precarious life was and how much rested upon his shoulders. From that day on, he’d not made a single misstep. He’d not allowed himself to commit one. Rather, he’d conducted himself only in a respectable manner, carrying himself with dignity and—
“How… unexpected running into you again, Lord Heath… and in a state of dishabille, no less.”
He stumbled a step.
Oh, bloody hell. God hated him. There was no other accounting for it.
For a long moment, Heath contemplated the path forward. He could very well simply pretend he’d not heard the minx. The minx with amusement heavy in her musical voice.
Except, he also had detected something else underlying Emilia Aberdeen’s tone—a knowing. She believed that gentleman that he was, he’d do the gentlemanly thing and make a quick retreat. Given the respectable way in which he’d conducted himself since… the nursery, it was a likely conclusion for the lady to come to. And yet, it was also the reason he found himself turning around.
The golden-haired minx didn’t so much as widen her eyes at the state of his dress. Or rather, undress. “Lord Heath,” she murmured, with a deep curtsy.
He narrowed his eyes. He was believing that show of decorum from this woman even less than he was believing his father’s prized horses would be flying over the damned walls of Everleigh. Nonetheless, he could play the game of pretend formality with the best of them. “Lady Emilia.” Heath sketched an equally deep bow.
At the sight of one’s host indecently clad, a doe-eyed debutante would have averted her eyes and taken off down the opposite hall. Lady Emilia, however, was no doe-eyed debutante. She was a woman grown now—and tenfold more impish than when she’d been a girl. She abandoned all earlier pretense of propriety and stared baldly at his feet.
“Sleep wandering.”
He blinked and followed her stare downward, almost thinking he might find those words scrawled on the flooring. What in blazes was she…?
“Are you a sleep wanderer, my lord?”
Apparently, he was the only one of their unlikely pair to appreciate how utterly preposterous it was that she should my lord him. First, they’d known each other as children. And two, well, he was nearly unclad before her. “I trust we’ve moved into the realm of using one another’s Christian names,” Heath said with an impressive drawl his brother would have been hard-pressed to emulate.
“Very well. Are you a sleep wanderer, Heath?”
God, the chit was tenacious. “No, I’m not,” he answered, folding his arms in a move that put the corner of the list in his hand on damning display. He swiftly jammed his hands behind his back.
Her too clever cornflower-blue eyes homed in on the hasty movement. Emilia took several steps closer. Drifting ever closer.
The insolent baggage.
She craned her neck so she might glance around his shoulder.
Heath hurriedly shifted, moving as she moved, rotating with her.
“Do you know, Lord Heath—?”
“Heath,” he muttered inanely, his stomach muscles tightening. Who would have imagined that he’d have been better served to practice the art of subterfuge, after all? “The situation certainly seems to warrant the use of our Christian names.” There was no escaping this. He’d wager all his future landholdings—entailed and unentailed—that the spitfire could have renegotiated the Lord Almighty into a second chance in that Garden of Eden had she so wished it.
Emilia stopped. So abruptly, he was knocked off-kilter, his back colliding with the wall. All earlier teasing was gone from the lady’s tone and eyes, replaced by a sharpness in those deep blue depths. “I know what that is, Heath,” she said evenly.
His stomach turned. “You do?” Heath again contemplated his retreat.
She leaned up. “Why, you have mail to post.”
“Mail,” he echoed dumbly. “At this—” He pressed his lips closed to keep from uttering the absurdity of posting mail at this late hour. Instead, he clung to the unexpected offering she’d held out. “You are correct.
She eyed him suspiciously.
And this was why he’d never bothered with the pranks his brother had. He was rot at it. Why couldn’t he be more like Graham? It was not, however, the first time in his life that he’d wished for those skills. With his spare hand, he adjusted his cravat—that wasn’t there—once more. “I’ve an urgent missive, and given the unpredictability of the weather we’ve been enjoying, I’d thought it prudent to have it sent. Immediately. Now.” As if to draw further attention to the absolute ridiculousness of those ramblings, the longcase striking clock behind her marked the hour.
He winced as the Westminster chimes sounded over. And over.
Heath offered a sheepish smile through the clear ringing.
Remarkably controlled as she was, the lady returned that smile and waited until the ten whole beats had first played and faded before speaking again. “Is it a sweetheart?”
He stared blankly at her.
Emilia nudged her chin at him. “Your letter?”
Heath strangled on his swallow. “N-n-no,” he said emphatically between his coughs. “Other business. It is other business,” he settled for.
Emilia drifted closer, until she was a handbreadth away, the scent of her, apple blossom, unexpected and sweet, and he filled his lungs with that summer fragrance. “Is that your view of love and… sweethearts, Heath?” Emilia angled her face up toward his. “As formal business arrangements?”
He was still lost in that tantalizing fragrance, so it took a moment for her question to register. “No. I don…” Except… He frowned. The relationships he’d had in the course of his life, the lovers he’d taken, had all been neatly arranged formal affairs with contracts drafted. There’d not, however, been… a sweetheart. Such a relationship bespoke an intimacy greater than sex and was one he’d not known before.
An all-too-knowing smile danced on Emilia’s lips. “I see.” By the glimmer in her impish eyes, she’d declared herself the holder of his truth. Emilia stepped away, the scent of her lingering still. “I will leave you to your mail… Heath,” she added, his name emerging as more of an afterthought than anything.
In fairness, that was what he had always been to her—an afterthought.
“Emilia.” He straightened, bringing his shoulders back and his feet together. His damned stockinged feet.
Emilia’s eyes dipped down toward the carpeted floor, and she lingered her gaze on his feet.
He resisted the urge to shift back and forth.
When she at last looked up, the familiarly teasing smile pulled at the corners of her lips. “Good evening, Heath.”
“Emilia,” he repeated for a second time, yet another reminder that he was not in possession of his roguish younger brother’s charm or skill at discourse.
He waited until Emilia continued past, her curved hips sashaying, the ice-blue satin molding to a delicately rounded derriere.
Heath swallowed hard. Do not look at her hips. Do not look at her—
As if she’d heard that silent chastisement, she cast a glance back over her shoulder and, with a saucy wink, disappeared around the corner.
Fighting back a groan, he swiped a hand over his face—the hand with the blasted list that was the source of all his woes.
Damn his soul to hell.
Ogling his best friend’s former betrothed, noticing the scent of her. Mayhap he had more of his brother’s scoundrel blood in him, after all.