All too soon, and with no amount of indecent haste, Lavinia found herself standing up inside St. George’s beside her sister as Louisa made her wedding vows to the viscount.
Louisa, starry-eyed with happiness, had all her attention on the tall, handsome man beside her who was promising to care for her for the rest of his life.
Louisa. Married. To a viscount, no less.
Lavinia was in shock, to say the least.
After having spent most of her life trying to be distinguished from her identical sister, now . . . now . . . they were going to be utterly separated, and a great sense of loss seemed ready to swallow her.
Lavinia struggled to find the right words—ones that didn’t make her feel like a jealous worm, ones that matched the tightness in her heart—when she realized that the entire church had gone silent.
She glanced up and found Louisa smiling at her, the bouquet in her hands held out for Lavinia to hold.
“Oh, yes, so sorry,” she whispered, as she took the bouquet and watched the viscount put his ring on Louisa’s finger.
There it was. The deed was done. Louisa was a Tempest no more. Now she was Louisa Stratton, Viscountess Wakefield. Lady Wakefield.
Lavinia felt as if she’d been cut adrift and was floating away from the steady ground she’d always known. She looked down at the flowers in her grasp and realized the petals were all trembling with the same question.
Whatever will become of me now that Louisa is gone?
And for whatever reason, Lavinia’s gaze rose and came to rest on the one place that seemed not to be moving, not to be so very unfamiliar.
On the handsome, rakish knave across from her. Tuck. All brushed and cleaned, wearing a borrowed jacket from Piers, though that didn’t stop the rogue from winking at her, as if to say, Better them than us, eh, Livy?
Still, whyever did she suddenly feel like she was no longer lost? As if she had found what she had come to London to gain.
Oh, hardly. Tuck Rowland possessed not a single, solitary qualification on her list. He was the most improper man she’d ever met.
Still, perhaps she should have composed her list after she understood what it meant to fall in love.
Tuck found himself standing up beside Piers as the viscount made his wedding vows.
While it might seem a time to make a joke about the parson’s trap, he’d never seen his cousin look so happy—a happiness reflected on nearly every face in the church. Lord Charleton. Lady Aveley. Lady Wakefield. Roselie. Even Brody, who’d slipped into one of the back pews.
Yet all this good cheer still had Tuck unable to fathom why it was his chest felt so tight or why his cravat seemed to be cutting off every bit of air in the vast church. He wasn’t the one being leg shackled and yet . . .
His gaze rose and fell on Livy.
He was struck by how pale she looked. Rather like how he felt. A bit stricken and shocked. As if their world were being turned upside down.
It was all he could do to stay in place and not go to her, to remind her that very soon she would be in much the same circumstances.
Standing up in a church and pledging her troth. Getting everything she’d wished for. Everything on her demmed list.
Yes, if everything went according to plan, the next wedding he’d attend would be hers. And then Tuck would be the one standing in the back pew.
And instead of making him feel jubilant, the very suggestion of Livy—his Livy—being led away by another, left him a bit unsteady, off-balance.
But that was what he wanted, wasn’t it?
He looked away, for once again his cravat had grown too tight and his gaze fell on Lady Aveley, who sat beside his Uncle Charleton. For her part, the lady sat ramrod straight, yet her gaze was tipped slightly as she stole a glance at the man beside her.
And if he wasn’t mistaken, there was a bit of a telltale blush to her cheeks that made her look almost maidenly.
Charleton and Lady Aveley?
For his part, the baron turned slightly and winked at the widow.
Actually winked, like some cheeky lad just out of university.
Tuck looked back at both of the sisters and wondered what sort of magic they’d brought to London with them, for surely the pair had brought mayhem to his world.
Before he could even consider the consequences of such a match—his uncle and Lady Aveley, that is—the reverend intoned the final words, and Piers caught hold of his bride and kissed her fiercely. The two of them tangled together scandalously, and everyone in the room felt the sudden need to glance away and give the happy couple a moment of privacy.
Then he realized that Livy had come to stand beside him.
“No one will ever want to kiss me like that,” she said, more to herself than to him.
It wasn’t so much the wistful want in her voice that stopped him, but the response tolling through him with the force of the church bells overhead.
I would. I’d kiss you, Livy.
He glanced over at her, and something, a nudge, the urge to take her in his arms again, in front of everyone caught him unaware, but it was something else that stopped him. For out of the corner of his eye, he spied a new arrival to the happy celebration.
Ilford.
Standing in the open doorway of the church like Lucifer himself.
“Wait here,” Tuck told her, setting Lavinia behind him, where she was out of Ilford’s line of sight as he strode down the aisle.
With the rest of the gathering distracted by their felicitations and well-wishes for the happy couple, Tuck moved quickly toward the interloper—for the marquess could hardly be here to extend his compliments.
Anything but.
“Aw, Mr. Rowland—” Ilford sneered.
“My lord,” Tuck murmured. He was willing to be polite—up to a point—if only to avoid a scene.
The marquess stepped into the sunshine outside, leaning on his elegant walking stick. “Surprised to see me?” he asked with droll arrogance.
“Rather,” Tuck remarked, instantly forgetting his determination to remain civil. “I had heard that you’d run to ground. I would have thought you in your hunting box in Scotland by now.”
A flicker of annoyance passed over the man’s cool features, then he glanced back in at the church. “So it is true. Wakefield’s gone and married one of them.”
The way he sneered that last word, “them,” set Tuck’s teeth on edge. His fingers curled tightly into a fist, and, remembering himself and where he stood, he willed his hand to unfurl.
“News travels fast,” Tuck remarked.
“I manage my interests with a careful eye. Nothing escapes me, Rowland, for I have no tolerance for losing. I intend to see you and your cousin ruined.”
The hairs on the back of Tuck’s neck stood up. But he’d met far rougher characters than the marquess to be undone by his snakish threats. “I would think you’d be worried, my lord. I’m halfway to winning.”
“You’ve only a week left,” the marquess reminded him, as a carriage pulled up, and a rough-looking fellow jumped down from the back and opened the door for the marquess.
“Only took a week to find Miss Louisa an advantageous match, certainly another won’t be very difficult to find one for the remaining Miss Tempest. She’s a rather delightful creature. Pretty as a picture.”
“I wouldn’t be so certain. Remember, I don’t leave these things to chance,” Ilford told him, a sly smile turning his lips, then he doffed his hat and strolled down the steps.
Tuck followed if only to ensure the man was well and gone before Piers came out of the church with his bride.
“Perhaps seek a groom for the gel at Bedlam,” the marquess offered as he got into his carriage. Glancing over his shoulder at the wedding guests who were now coming out of the doors, he added, “If one sister is willing to marry a madman, another might do in a pinch.”
Tuck stepped forward, ready to haul the smug man out of his richly appointed carriage and pummel him into the pavement with the silver-tipped walking stick the marquess always carried, but a steady hand on his shoulder stopped him.
“Not today,” his uncle said quietly and firmly. “Not now.”
The marquess smiled as he tapped the roof with his walking stick, and the carriage lurched forward. The arrogant fellow waved at the bride and groom.
The new Viscountess Wakefield stared at the two fellows hanging on the back.
“My lord,” she said, looking up at Piers. “Isn’t that Mr. Bludger and that dreadful Charlie he had working with him?”
Piers’s head turned quickly, and his eyes widened with shock. “How the devil—”
Tuck looked as well. “You know them?”
“Unfortunately,” Piers said, nodding toward the well-appointed carriage as it went down the block. “That’s my former cook and his associate in thievery. I would certainly like to know what the three of them are doing together. That doesn’t bode well.”
Tuck nodded. He couldn’t agree more. “Then let me find out.”
He went loping down the block, hugging the side of the buildings and rounding the corner just after the marquess’s carriage turned into the slow-moving traffic beyond.
“Do you think that’s a good idea,” Louisa asked. “Mr. Bludger is a dangerous man.”
“Tuck can hold his own,” Lord Charleton assured her.
“Aye, he can.” Piers nodded in agreement.
Into their midst, Lavinia arrived. “Where is Mr. Rowland going?”
“He had another matter he must attend to,” Piers told her.
“Yes, other business,” Lord Charleton agreed. “I do believe weddings have an ill effect on Tuck.”
Everyone laughed, save Lavinia, who stood watching Tuck depart until he was gone from her sight. When she looked up, she realized everyone in their party had already gone down the steps and were dividing up into the carriages.
“Lavinia?” Louisa called to her. “I forgot my bouquet.”
“I’ll get it,” she promised. “You go on ahead.”
Because at that moment, Lavinia, like Tuck, found that weddings had an ill effect on her as well. So she made her way back into St. George’s.
“I hate to tell you I told you so,” Charleton said later that night as he handed Lady Aveley—Amy—a glass of wine.
She took it, lips pursed. “Then don’t. But I will concede that both the bride and groom looked well pleased.”
“That gel has worked a miracle with Piers,” the baron said, raising a glance in a toast.
Amy did the same.
Their glasses touched just at the rims with a quiet clink, and she looked away. “I just don’t think—”
“What, Amy? What don’t you think?” He reached for her, but the lady slipped past him.
They’d known each other since childhood. Been all but betrothed, then he’d married another. Amy had found Aveley, and the years had passed. Now . . . well, now . . . He reached for her, hungry to have her in his arms again.
Last night had been . . . amazing, he realized. He should have known having grown up with Amy that she would be a passionate handful in bed—she’d always been a headstrong and impetuous minx when they’d been younger.
“We mustn’t,” Amy said quietly, shaking her head and stepping away. “Not again. It isn’t proper. Some chaperone I’ve turned out to be.”
“Not such a bad one,” he teased. “You’ve gotten one of them married off.”
“I think that had more to do with you distracting me last night so Wakefield could be alone with Miss Tempest.”
“Don’t look so formidable,” he told her. “It worked. He married her.”
“Thankfully,” she told him.
“Shall we go for two nights in a row?” he teased, closing the distance between them. “See Lavinia married off on the morrow?”
“If you still mean to marry that girl to your heir, then no,” she told him. “They will not suit.”
“I disagree.”
“Then you don’t know Lavinia very well. She has very strict notions of propriety. She has expectations of a good match. And Tuck, well . . . ” She paused. “And you know as well as I do, that he’d run through her dowry and inheritance without a thought for the future.”
He ruffled a bit at this—hearing his nephew and heir disparaged, but he couldn’t argue the fact. Not and reveal the truth. He doubted Amy would even believe him—that Tuck was far more honorable than anyone knew. Or would ever know. That for now, Tuck must remain the less-than-sterling example of propriety.
But that didn’t mean he was unworthy of Miss Tempest.
Yet when he looked up, he found Amy ready to cross swords again. “She keeps a list.”
“A list?”
“A list gleaned from every manual, treatise and tract on manners and propriety.”
“Hardly seems fair,” Charleton told her, raking his hand through his hair as he considered this. “Isn’t a man in London who could stand up to such scrutiny.”
“No, I daresay you are correct in that.” She smiled—a simple thing that seemed to illuminate her features.
And once again, he stepped toward her. He couldn’t help himself.
And this time he caught hold of her hand and pulled her close, only to have the door to the study come open.
Amy moved first, taking two steps away from him and turning her back to the door.
“Do forgive the interruption, my lord,” Mrs. Rowland said, glancing at the pair of them, one dark brow rising as she studied the tableaux before her. “Brobson was under the impression you were alone.”
“Madame,” he said, bowing slightly. “We were just toasting the happy couple.” He reached for his glass, a prop to give his statement some proof.
“Truly? A toast?” The quirk of her brow and her knowing smile acknowledged his lie, but the lady said no more on the subject, instead turning toward the baron’s companion. “Lady Aveley, how nice to see you again.”
“Mrs. Rowland,” Amy replied tightly.
Strolling into the room, Jenny Rowland set her reticule down on the nearest chair and began to remove her gloves. “I feel positively terrible to have interrupted your . . .” She paused and looked around the room again, “cozy celebration, but I have a family matter that must be discussed, Charleton.”
Amy straightened. “I don’t like your implication.”
His sister-in-law turned like a cat—smoothly, a smile on her lips. “What ever would be implied, Lady Aveley? I’ve simply found two unmarried persons drinking alone at a very late hour and standing in close proximity to each other. What does one make of such a scenario?” She glanced over at her brother-in-law. “Charleton?”
“Can’t whatever it is be discussed tomorrow?” he asked her.
“No.” She shrugged off her pelisse, then settled into the chair next to his by the fire.
“Isn’t it rather late for a lady to be out calling on gentlemen?” Lady Aveley asked.
This time Charleton did groan. Amy had always been an intrepid minx, but she was outmanned and outgunned when it came to tangling with the likes of Jenny Rowland.
“Yes, it is very late,” Mrs. Rowland agreed, glancing over her shoulder at Lady Aveley. “Then again, aren’t chaperones supposed to keep respectable hours? A decorous example and all. Or is that how you managed to get that dear, sweet girl married off so quickly?”
When the color drained from Amy’s face, Lady Rowland laughed. “So I thought.”
Lady Aveley came marching across the room, looking ready to do battle, hands balled into fists at her sides, but Charleton caught her by the elbow and towed her toward the door. “Please, Amy. Let me finish this, and I’ll be—” He stopped himself there.
Right up.
There was a polite cough from the chair by the fire, and Amy tried once again to get to her.
Yes, Jenny had that way about her. Two hundred years earlier and she’d have fed a bonfire for certain with her sharp tongue and knowing glance.
But she was family, his family, and Charleton took a deep breath, if only because he’d promised his younger brother he would never forsake her.
No matter what.
“Please, Amy, let me settle this quickly,” he told her as he led her from the study, all but towing her to the stairs. “I’ll—”
Come find you . . .
There she shook off his grasp and marched up the steps. The look she shot him from the first landing had only one meaning.
Don’t bother.
“Oh dear, Charleton,” Jenny said as he came back into the study. “I fear I’ve made things difficult for you.”
“You have that way about you, madame.”
He sat down in the chair opposite hers, feeling entirely out of sorts.
“I suppose I do,” she replied with an unrepentant shrug. Jenny Rowland had a knack for walking into a room and summing up the contents and the people therein within the blink of an eye.
Mostly for summing up the contents. But that was a discussion for another time.
“I think you know what I’ve come to discuss,” she said, holding her hands out to the fire. Her only adornment was the plain wedding band on her finger—the one his madcap younger brother had put there so many years ago.
That she had never taken it off was, he supposed, her most redeeming character.
“You’ve come about Tuck.”
“Of course it is about Tuck. What else would it be?”
It wasn’t like Jenny to be quite this sharp, so Charleton realized this wager of Tuck’s wasn’t his nephew’s usual bad run of luck. Jenny looked positively worried. And probably with good reason.
“Ilford,” he said simply.
“Ilford,” she repeated, spitting out the name like a sharp pit. “If only that foul man would meet with some well-deserved accident.”
Charleton sat up. “You haven’t—” He wasn’t entirely unaware of his sister-in-law’s less-than-savory connections.
“Oh, don’t be foolish,” she shot back. “Though the Honorable has quite a different opinion. But I keep reminding him that Ilford is the heir to a dukedom, and I suspect there would be some uproar if he was found floating in the Thames.”
Some, Charleton would have told her, but not as much as she would imagine. Even Ilford’s father deplored him. But he didn’t say as much.
It wouldn’t do to encourage Jenny.
“Tuck is in deep, my lord. Something must be done.”
“I know,” was all he could add.
“We both owe him a great debt,” she said, bringing up a subject they had never discussed. “He thinks we don’t know what he sacrificed that night, but I do. And I suspect you do as well.”
Charleton inclined his head. Tuck had done his own reputation in to keep the Rowland family name out of the suds.
“We can’t tell him we know. He’s ever so full of pride.” She paused, then added, “Rowland pride.”
The baron’s brow quirked at this.
“He sacrificed his honor for me,” she said with more humility than he’d ever heard come out of her. She glanced up at him, a pleading light in her eyes.
He hadn’t seen her look so desperate since his brother’s passing. It wrung at him, for he’d failed Granville, but he’d vowed then that he wouldn’t fail his brother’s only child, Tuck. Still, Charleton felt a bit of shame that he’d neglected so much since Isobel had died. That he’d let it come to this.
“He sacrificed much for both of us,” he agreed. “What do you propose?”
“My lord?”
He wasn’t such a fool that he didn’t know that if Jenny Rowland was here, she had a plan. “Madame, don’t be coy with me. We’ve known each other too long. You’ve come here with some mad plan and expect me to go along with it, don’t you?”
Now it was her turn to nod. “It is time we repaid him.”
And once she explained what she had in mind, George Rowland, the fifteenth Baron Charleton, knew not only was Mrs. Rowland’s plan mad and entirely ruinous, it was also nothing short of brilliant.