“Wherein the Marquess of Winterbourne throws a stone.”

 

“Well, Lady Greyston,” Alex said, his voice a touch reproachful as Violette raised her chin and stared openly at him, as though daring him to tell her she was a disgrace. Despite everything, Aubrey smiled at that. God, she was brave. “I discovered a gibbering footman waiting outside Hatchard’s with this wretched animal. Poor chap seemed to think he’d lost you and would be turned off without a character.”

Alex gave her an enquiring look and Violette flushed.

“I asked him to look after Bandit while I stepped inside the bookshop,” she said, with a shrug. “I assure you, I had no intention of allowing the man to take the blame for my behaviour.”

“Naturally,” Alex replied, his tone dry as he put the indignant spaniel down. Aubrey cursed as it immediately ran to him and began to jump up and bark, scrabbling at his ankles.

“Good God, Falmouth,” Aubrey exclaimed, trying to limit the damage to his boots. His valet had almost quit his post after the last time. “Can’t you get Celeste to train the little beast?”

“Bandit. Sit,” Alex said, his tone clipped and hard. The little dog’s bottom hit the floor like it had been pulled on a string, and Aubrey raised his eyebrows.

“Oh.”

His cousin gifted him with a look of smug superiority before his gaze darkened further.

“Are you actually out of your mind, Aubrey? If Winterbourne discovers she’s here, he’ll call you out,” he said, the words blunt.

Aubrey nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know it,” he replied, fighting the urge to groan.

“Then why the devil ...”

“I came here by myself,” Violette said, stepping forward and placing her arm on Aubrey’s, a rather possessive gesture that he found absurdly touching. “Aubrey had no hand in it.”

“No, and he didn’t escort you directly home, either,” Alex noted with a thread of anger.

“He couldn’t,” she replied, a rather haughty and indignant edge to the words. She sniffed and looked at her nails as though she didn’t have a care in the world.

“Couldn’t?” Alex repeated, looking her diminutive frame over with the lift of one sceptical eyebrow.

“No,” she replied with a sweet smile.

She stepped forward and looked up at Falmouth from under her lashes. “Are there ever occasions when the countess uses ... underhand measures to get her own way, my lord?” she asked, her voice low and a touch breathless.

Aubrey felt a swell of jealousy and resentment at that expression cast in his cousin’s direction, even though he knew she was making a point in his defence.

Falmouth open and closed his mouth, clearing his throat. “Yes. Well,” he muttered, looking just a little ruffled. “We’d best get you back to your brother before he misses you. You’re only allowed to visit Celeste at all on the strict understanding that she is with you at all times!”

Violette shrugged, looking quite remorseless. “Bandit was with me,” she said, her lips only twitching a little.

Aubrey sighed and sank onto the arm of the nearest chair, rubbing his face with one hand. “He’s right, though, Violette. You should not have come.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, her green eyes flashing with annoyance. “You weren’t saying that ten minutes ago!” she pointed out with perfect honesty, making Aubrey flush to the roots of his auburn hair.

“How’s a man to think ...” he began in his own defence, when he remembered Alex was still there, and clamped his mouth shut.

“How hen-hearted you are,” she complained, crossing her arms and scowling at him. “We agreed that if I was ruined - by you - that my brother would be forced to allow us to marry.”

“No, love,” he objected, getting to his feet and running to pull her hands to him. “We did not, and I assure you it’s not because I’m afraid. At least, if it were only I who would face the unpleasantness, then I should have no hesitation, but ... but I think you have no concept of what society is like when you are only allowed on the fringes, never able to take your rightful place again.”

She sighed and gave him a look of reproach, her big eyes sad and solemn. “My place is with you, Aubrey.”

Alex retreated a moment to allow them to say goodbye in private, and called for a footman to escort Lady Greyston to his carriage.

Aubrey kissed her fingers, smiling at her. “I shan’t give up, love,” he promised her. “Not yet. But please ... please give me time. Don’t do anything rash. Perhaps if your brother sees we are determined, he’ll relent.”

Violette gave a very unladylike and unconvinced snort of derision, but she lifted herself on tiptoe and kissed him. “I’ll be good,” she promised, though there was a twinkle lurking in her eyes that he didn’t trust an inch. “But I’m not very good at being good,” she admitted and he thought she was only half-joking. “And I’m worse at being patient, Aubrey. I give you fair warning.”

“Noted,” he replied, smiling at her and feeling his heart lift at the look in her eyes as she left him, full of love and expectation.

“Whoever marries her will have quite a challenge on his hands,” Alex observed as he returned to say goodbye.

“That challenge will be mine,” Aubrey said, his voice determined. Though how in the name of God he thought to bring this about was beyond him.

Alex’s hand rested on his shoulder and gave a squeeze. “I’ll support you anyway I can. You know that?” Aubrey nodded, smiling with gratitude.

“I know it.”

Alex let out a breath. “You’ll be at Almack’s tonight for Winterbourne’s return to society, I imagine?”

Aubrey grimaced but nodded. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, coz,” he said, his tone heavy with irony. “Assuming I haven’t been blackballed by now.”

Alex gave a dark chuckle and shook his head. “You know as well as I do that they rather like a rake at Almack’s, as long as his address is good and he dresses well. Oh no,” he added, his tone nonchalant. “You have to be terribly out of fashion, or far more depraved than a mere rake, to be denied access to their hallowed ground.”

Of course, Aubrey knew full well that Alex had been denied vouchers, not that he’d wanted them, for many years before Celeste entered his life. Though it would have been his omniscient Aunt Seymour who actually procured the things in the end.

Giving him a devilish grin, Alex nodded his farewell and headed to his carriage.

***

Aubrey moved around the grand ballroom, very aware of the eyes that seemed to devour him at every turn. How strange it was. Before Violette had entered his life, he had been sought out as an amusing partner, always relied upon to take pity on a wallflower or two, and happily drawn into conversation with mothers of marriageable daughters. Though he’d never been overtly encouraged to pay any attention to said daughters, as everyone knew that his pockets were, if not to let, at least a little threadbare, he had not been reviled either. Now those very same mothers looked askance at him, while the hot, hungry gazes of their daughters settled on him with interest. What was it about a man who behaved with such a lack of compassion and care that cast them all in a twitter? Women were unaccountable creatures, he decided.

He nodded a greeting to Alex, who had just entered the ballroom with Celeste on his arm. All dressed in a pale, celestial blue, she looked perfectly enchanting. Alex bore the expression of a man on his guard, a possessive glint in his eyes that dared any man to do more than look. Aubrey chuckled and wondered if poor Celeste would get to dance at all, or if Alex would scare all of her partners away.

He wondered how it would feel to enter a ballroom with Violette on his arm, and then wondered if he would ever know. She would not be here tonight, of course. From what Alex had told him, Lord Winterbourne did intend to bring her out in this season. Though his plans for her to marry the Duke of Ranleigh were still fresh in his mind, by all accounts. He had no doubt once the marquess’ position was re-established, this would be dealt with as a matter of urgency.

Of course, the stir the man would make tonight would set the ton alight with enough gossip to feed them for weeks to come. But if the marquess enquired as to the penniless Mr Russell, there would still be reports aplenty returning to him that the man was a rake and a libertine, with at least one bastard child to his name. Of course, these were things that would be overlooked readily enough if he had a fat purse or a loftier title. As it was, he was sunk.

Aubrey’s eyes scanned the ballroom, searching out and finding Lord Gabriel Greyston. Of course, everyone was addressing him as Winterbourne still, but that was about to change. He had to admit to surprise that the man had been allowed in. Now that was a dark reputation. He had heard through Alex that he was blackmailing one of the patronesses. That, Aubrey could well believe. Blackmail, adultery, possibly even murder, if a fraction of the rumours were to be counted as true. Lord Gabriel Greyston seemed to embrace his reputation with relish, however. Dressed only in unrelenting black, his too-long black hair was tied back in an unfashionable queue and fastened with a thin black ribbon. He looked like a crow in a room packed with peacocks and exotic birds.

Nonetheless, he was an imposing figure, and one that demanded attention.

Well, Aubrey thought with a grimace. He’d get some attention tonight, alright, though perhaps not the kind he would care for. The raising from the dead of the seventh Marquess of Winterbourne would certainly put him in the spotlight.

As if Aubrey had conjured the man with that thought, a stillness fell over the ballroom, the like of which he had never experienced. Turning, he saw Winterbourne, the true Marquess Winterbourne step into view. Despite Aubrey’s anger towards the man, he had to concede he was an impressive sight. He was impeccably dressed, and somehow, the sling that held his broken arm only served to give him a battle-weary, heroic air, not that he needed the help.

The two Winterbournes were very obviously related. Their stature and the breadth of their shoulders was clue enough, and while the pretender might be darker, both in colouring and reputation, there was a cool glint in Edward Greyston’s eyes that spoke of an implacable nature. Aubrey wondered if the rumours of madness had any basis in foundation. He could not help but believe they really might.

A woman screamed somewhere in the grand ballroom, quickly followed by another as the silence broke and a frenzy of speculation erupted.

“He’s alive! My God, he’s alive!” The words were repeated and echoed around the room like a stone had been thrown hard into still water, the ripples shuddering out across the vast space.

Aubrey turned his head away from the place where Violette’s brother had been consumed by a clamouring crowd, and turned to the deposed eighth marquess, once more styled as the Viscount Demorte. He was utterly devoid of reaction, his face betraying nothing. There was no show of emotion, no flicker of humiliation, nothing. He looked disinterested at best, as though the furore was beneath his notice. Then he turned and inclined his head, a movement so slight that if Aubrey had not been watching him closely, he might have missed it. Someone else had been watching, though, and a young man that Aubrey did not recognise ran to Demorte. The viscount dipped his head a little, clearly giving the man an instruction, and moments later the young man scurried away.

Aubrey pushed through the crowd, curious as to what would happen next as he saw Demorte move towards his cousin. A breathless hush fell over the assembled company once more as the two men came face-to-face.

Though it barely concerned him, Aubrey felt his breath catch at the hatred in Demorte’s eyes when he looked upon Edward Greyston, a hatred that appeared to be returned in kind.

Demorte held out his hand, his eyes daring the man to refuse the amicable gesture on this, polite society’s stage. Whatever passed here would be repeated and gossiped about for years to come.

The silence stretched on, the tension in the room so great that Aubrey could almost feel it crackle.

At last, Edward Greyston, the Marquess of Winterbourne, took the hand held out to him by his cousin, Gabriel Greyston, Viscount Demorte.

“A neat trick, cousin.” Demorte’s voice was cool and amused, almost mocking. “You must show me how it’s done.” With that he executed a most elegant bow and left the ballroom, somehow looking unruffled and as coldly proud as ever, despite the fact he’d just been stripped of his title.

Aubrey watched him go as Winterbourne was engulfed by clamorous voices, a prickle of unease creeping down his spine. There was something that told him the Viscount Demorte was not someone who would forgive and forget.