He’d been avoiding her.
And more, her new husband had lashed out at her because of the prying questions she’d put to him. Having become a master at delivering an evasive answer in order to spare her skin from her father’s blows, she’d come to well recognize the tactic in others.
And coward that she was, Chloe was grateful for the distance. For how was one to be around a man who’d been a mere stranger days ago and who’d strummed her body to exquisite bliss? Who’d managed to do so when she’d set specific terms that maintained control of her body and his rights to it? But in that moment, in his offices, she’d ceded all to him.
Now, she sat across from that same man who, once more, had disappeared during the day. He had returned at night only for the express purpose of attending a dinner with her family.
Seated on the opposite bench from him, Chloe kept her hands folded and tucked within the clever pocket sewn along the front of her cloak. The coach rumbled along, the rapidly churning wheels the only sound to fill the quiet.
Leo sat, his body positioned toward the window, his shoulder presented to her. The lines of his face reflected in the lead window revealed his usual mask—perfectly carved, wholly unreadable.
Chloe cleared her throat.
He remained immobile.
Chloe tried again. “I said, ‘Ahem.’”
Her husband angled a cool glance over his shoulder. Gone was the rake bent on seduction. In his place was absolute… nothingness. Odd, she should find herself mourning the absence of that urbane figure.
“I created this for you.” Removing her hand from her pocket, she held out the page she’d worked on that afternoon.
He flicked a glance at her. “What is this?” he asked frostily.
“Well, if you’d simply read it, you can see for yourself.” She flashed a smile.
Leo narrowed his eyes and then glanced at the page. As swift as he’d looked down, he was already handing it back. “Duly noted.”
Chloe folded her arms in an obstinate display. “You asked me for help in making you respectable.” A feat she was learning every hour was nigh impossible. “I cannot help you if you’re unwilling to take my guidance.” Annoyance filled her. “Read it.”
“I already did,” he gritted out, shaking the page.
Chloe pointedly ignored it. “No one reads that quickly and certainly not well enough to process and properly contemplate any meaningful advice or ideas. As such, if you’ll not take my guidance, I cannot—”
“Keep respectable hours. Quit my clubs. Give up wagering and drink.” She opened her mouth, but no words came out. He’d read all of the notes she’d made for him with nothing more than a glance? “Ah, and what was the last item? Conduct gentlemanly pastimes.” A rakish grin iced his lips as he ogled her with a leer that suggested he could see through her satin cloak. Which was preposterous. No one could undress a person with their eyes. Nonetheless…
Chloe adjusted the garment. “Not those gentlemanly pursuits. The other, respectable sorts, that is.”
Shrinking the space in the carriage, he leaned forward and dropped his elbows onto his knees. The carriage became impossibly small, sucking all the air free. It had to be that. Because the alternative was that it was his body’s nearness, and she could not, would not become one of those breathless sorts. Even telling herself that, Chloe felt her breath quicken. The masculine glint in his eyes hinted at a man who knew the exact effect he was having on her.
“Tell me, Chloe.” He stretched the two syllables of her name out on a silken caress. She struggled to draw sufficient air into her lungs. “Do you know so very much about the disreputable gentlemanly pursuits?” he purred, the warmth of his breath fanning her cheeks.
Chloe trembled. He’s merely trying to unsettle me. He’s using a rake’s charm that has, no doubt, seen countless women in his bed. Don’t give him that power. “I do now.” He stilled. “That is, after our morning tête-à-tête,” she casually tossed.
She squeaked as he wrapped his gloved palms about her waist and gently lifted her onto his lap. The tender consideration of her healing ankle was a contradiction to the aloof rake who didn’t give a damn about anyone. That realization made her awareness of him all the more perilous.
He whispered teasingly against her ear, “That is what you’re basing your carnal knowledge on, love?” Her head tipped reflexively, allowing him access to the sensitive skin where her neck met her lobe. “One stolen exchange?”
“In your a-arms,” she pointed out. “A-are you doubting the quality of that e-exchange?” Because it had been the single most erotic, heady moment of her five and twenty years.
“Doubt my own prowess?” he scoffed. He worked his hand up her skirts. She gasped. Swat him away. Demand he… “Never,” he said as he moved his palm higher. The rub of his gloved fingers against her stockings lent an air of the forbidden to the exchange. She could no sooner stop his pursuit than she could muster a glib retort. “But that was just a taste, Chloe.” He brushed his lips against her neck. Her pulse accelerated. “A taste of what I will show you… when you surrender.”
What I will show you… not what I could…
So wholly different, the implication clear. Turning her body over to him in the most intimate of ways was inevitable.
Two days ago, she would have laughed confidently in his face. Now—
Leo drifted his hand higher, to the inside portion of her thigh, and lightly squeezed the flesh.
Chloe bit the inside of her cheeks as he turned the tables upside down. “I-I will simply add this to my knowledge of disreputable gentlemanly pursuits,” she said as matter-of-factly as she could. He sucked at the place where her pulse beat, lightly grazing her skin with his teeth. Chloe’s eyes slid closed of their own volition. Oh, God.
“What of this?” He palmed her between her thighs.
Her head fell back against the squabs of the bench. “C-certainly that t-too should make the list.”
He grinned, applying pressure with his hand. An ache settled at her core, a desperate yearning for his touch—
Leo caressed his lips along the side of her mouth, a hint of a kiss that further ignited her longing.
The carriage hit a jarring bump, knocking his mouth free, clearing her senses. Chloe shoved at his hand. “Enough,” she said tightly, for herself as much as for him.
He frowned. But it did not escape her notice that he didn’t persist in his efforts at seduction.
“You are very… skilled,” she settled for, “in the art of—”
“Disreputable gentlemanly pursuits?” he supplied with heavy sarcasm. That drollness was belied by the haze of passion in his eyes.
Chloe smiled. “Well, I was going to say ‘lovemaking,’ but that shall suffice.”
He laughed. The expression of mirth was rusty and raw and so very real that her heart tripped several beats.
They both started. Her own shock was reflected in his gaze.
As quick as his composure had cracked, he reassembled the façade. “You were saying?” he urged gruffly, hurriedly setting her from his lap.
To give her shaking fingers purpose, she patted at her previously tidy chignon. “Yes. You do not wish me to ask questions about you or your past.”
“No.”
“It was a statement,” she felt inclined to point out. “And yet, you’d freely…” She gestured between them.
“Make love to you?”
A wave of heat washed over her from just four words asked as a question. Words he’d undoubtedly uttered countless times with legions of women. Only, spoken in that husky whisper, there was an intimacy that also suggested a specialness. No doubt, this was what made rakes the legends they were. “You won’t accept questions or share any parts of yourself. You attempt to push me away to prevent me from asking anything that forces you to reveal any true part of who you are. All of this—your kisses, your touches—they’re all a distraction. Because as long as I’m off-balance, I don’t get too close to whatever secrets you’re so determined to keep.” His expression grew shuttered. Chloe angled her chin up. “And that is why I’ll never make love to you.”
His lips curled up at the corners. “If that is what you desire… then that is hardly the business arrangement you spoke of.”
“We can be friends.” Where in thunderation had that come from?
He laughed again. The sound was brittle and coarse. “I don’t have any friends.”
Chloe’s heart tugged. His, too, had been a lonely existence. As a child whose family had been determined to keep their darkest secrets private, she herself had known a solitary existence. Her eldest siblings had been… older, and they’d all been fixed on surviving. Because of that need for preservation, she’d not known just how important and cathartic a true friendship was—until she’d been sent away to finishing school and found her first true friend. Chloe bent and retrieved her forgotten instructions for him. “We must add that,” she said, tucking the page back inside her cloak pocket. “You require friends. Respectable ones,” she hastily added.
He snorted. “I’m quite content without.”
One might say it was a fate he was surely deserving of. However, one might also say that not everyone, not even the hardest, darkest rake, had been born evil. With that pronouncement and jaded laugh, she learned more about the man she’d married than she had in any previous exchange. “Of course you are,” she said softly.
The carriage rolled to a slow halt.
Leo smoothed his palms down the double-breasted plait on the front of his cloak. “First task, respectability,” he muttered to himself. He reached for the door handle, but Chloe shot a hand out.
“I promised I would not probe—”
“But you intend to anyway,” he ventured warily.
“If you answer me one question, it will be my last.” But she needed to know.
“Very well.”
She widened her eyes. He’d capitulate that easily? Before he changed his mind, Chloe opened her mouth.
“I’ll allow you that question as long as you are willing to welcome me into your bed.”
Chloe promptly closed her mouth.
“I take that as a no, then?” he drawled.
“A firm no, my lord.”
“Then no questions.” With that reminder, Leo opened the door and jumped down.
While Chloe gathered her cane, she stared contemplatively after her husband, a man so determined to hold on to his secrets. A man she’d taken to be an emotionless, hard-hearted rake. And then he’d revealed his was a friendless existence, changing everything.
Yes, she’d committed herself to a distant business arrangement that would earn Leo the respectability he needed. It would also earn her the post at Mrs. Munroe’s.
But as he reached inside and helped hand her down, she acknowledged there was no reason she couldn’t help her husband in other ways, too.
Hiding her smile, she allowed him to escort her along the pavement to her former home.
Leo had fought adversaries in the darkest alleys of the Continent in exchanges less tense than the meal he now suffered through.
Surrounded by his wife’s eldest brother and elder sister, along with their respective spouses, and the dowager marchioness, Leo rather thought he’d prefer a walk down one of those darkened alleyways.
It was silent in the room. Only the clank of silver utensils striking porcelain plates provided any sounds to fill the Marquess of Waverly’s dining room.
Carefully slicing a portion of his fillet of veal, Leo cheerfully popped the bite into his mouth.
Alas, he’d encountered far more loathing amongst members of Polite Society. His new family’s opinion of him mattered less than even his dead sire’s. Leo set down his fork and reached for his half-drunk glass of wine.
Thrumming the corner of the glass with the tip of his finger, he took a long swallow. “Quality wine, my lady,” he said for their hostess.
The Marchioness of Waverly lifted her head in acknowledgment. Her curious gaze was surprisingly devoid of malice. She studied him with clever eyes. Probing. Piercing.
Life, and his work with the Brethren, had long proven the peril in both.
He lifted his glass in a salute and then downed his drink.
Feeling hostile eyes on him, he glanced down the length of the room.
With hatred burning from within his eyes from his place at the head of the table, Lord Waverly carved up the veal on his plate. All the while, he did not take his venomous gaze from Leo. Favoring his brother-in-law with a mocking lift of his head, Leo abandoned his glass in favor of another bite of veal.
A growl sounded at the opposite end of the crowded dining table.
The Dowager Marchioness of Waverly pressed her napkin to her lips, burying yet another sob. From over the white fabric, her bloodshot eyes avoided Leo.
Leo could certainly commiserate with that response. Had he a daughter—which he decidedly would not—and she married a bounder like Leo, he’d have a like reaction and then would promptly make a widow of the girl.
Humming a tavern ditty, he moved over to his cauliflower à la Flamande.
A slippered foot collided with his shin. He grunted, the food slipping from his fork.
Across from him, his wife scowled. “Behave,” she mouthed.
“I’m not doing anything,” he silently returned.
His wife arched an eyebrow. “The. Rakes. Of. Mallow?” she silently enunciated.
He sat up. “You know it?” Was there no end to the surprises around his wife?
Chloe tipped her head back and forth. “Beauing, belleing, dancing, drinking, breaking windows, cursing, sinking. Ever raking, never thinking, live the rakes of Mallow.”
Leo grinned and joined her noiseless rendition. “Spending faster than it comes, beating waiter’s bailiffs, duns, Bacchus’ true begotten sons, live the rakes of Mallow—”
The screech of metal scraping across glass cut through his wife’s singing of those lyrics.
Leo and Chloe glanced as one to a glowering Waverly.
The bastard he’d been these past years, Leo wanted to flip a finger up in a crude mockery of the man’s upset. His wife kicked him under the table.
“Respectability,” she mouthed.
Oh, bloody hell.
The whole of his mission and his career with the Brethren was dependent upon the very reminder his wife now uttered. That word, and all it implied, ran contrary to all he was. He didn’t know how to be respectable. Hell, he didn’t know how to be anything but one who inspired fear from protective mamas, loathing from every distinguished matron, and sexual interest from women.
His wife’s elder sister cleared her throat, calling his attention. “We regret that we were unable to be present at your nuptials, Lord Leopold, but I can attest that we all wish you and Chloe the utmost happiness.”
And with that, she was officially the first of the Edgertons who’d not skewered him with her eyes or words.
Leo shifted in his seat. “My lady,” he acknowledged. It was simpler dealing with the loathing. He didn’t know what to do with this warmth… from anyone. It was as foreign as the Arabic language spoken so quickly about portions of Spain.
The table fell into silence once again, which was far preferable, and yet…
He glanced across at Chloe.
Oddly, he’d been quite enjoying the back-and-forth with his wife.
After a never-ending stretch, the courses came and went, the dessert was cleared from the table, and the guests began to file from the room.
Leo tarried behind his chair. Oh, God, this was a special kind of hell. Adjourning for—he shuddered—brandy and gentlemanly discourse with Waverly and his equally stodgy brother-in-law, the Marquess of Guilford.
And by the quick path all the Edgertons took, they were as thrilled at his joining their ranks as he was to join.
His wife hesitated in the doorway. With the benefit of the cane, she brought herself back around to face him. “Leo?” she asked quizzically.
He held his palms aloft. “I’ve dined. I draw the line at anything further.”
“Joining respectable gentlemen for brandies?” She tapped her cane. “Gentlemen who also happen to be your brothers-in-law.”
“I trust I’m doing them a greater favor if I allow them their company without me being a part of it.” In fact, he’d be doing them all the greatest favor—Leo included.
Chloe sighed. “You really need to consult the instructions I provided earlier.”
They waged a silent battle. Any other woman would have backed down under the dark glare he shot her. He should have known better where his wife was concerned.
She thumped the floor again with her cane.
“Oh, bloody hell.” Leo scraped a hand through his hair. “I’ll join them.”
His wife smiled. That grin faintly dimpled her left cheek. “Splendid.”
So it was, a short while later, after being escorted to Waverly’s billiards room, he found himself alone with his brothers-in-law. Both already engaged in a game, they didn’t spare him even a glance.
“Gentlemen,” he called from the doorway.
The crack of Guilford’s targeted ball served as Leo’s empty greeting.
He sighed.
His wife was still too naïve to realize her hopes for the Edgertons welcoming Leo into their folds were as unlikely as the queen’s terriers taking flight over Kensington Palace. Had Leo truly ever been that innocent?
“Your shot,” Guilford murmured to Waverly.
Uninvited, Leo did a turn about the room, surveying the space. If he were going to have to suffer through this, he’d require a damned drink. He settled his gaze on the mahogany tantalus. Crossing over, he attempted to open the glass doors. Locked.
“Tennyson, what the hell are you doing?” Waverly snapped.
He paused. “I thought it should be fairly obvious,” he drawled over his shoulder. “I’m availing myself of a glass of brandy. Or trying to.” He looked pointedly at the stand.
“You ruin my sister and wed her without my consent, and think to drink my spirits?” his brother-in-law asked, his tone steeped in incredulity. Tension spilled from the Marquess of Waverly’s broad shoulders.
He was on the cusp of snapping. Leo had countless experiences with men—and women—close to losing control. “I did speak with you first.” He smiled. “Though, in truth, your answer never meant anything.” It had been the lady’s cooperation he’d required.
Chloe’s brother stiffened. Then, with a sharp bark of fury, he surged forward.
Lord Guilford grabbed his brother-in-law by the shoulder, holding him back.
“This continues to be a game to you, Tennyson,” Waverly hissed.
“Pfft, hardly that.” Leo gave a mock shudder. “No game ends in marital chains.”
Waverly fought against his brother-in-law’s hold. The vein bulging in his forehead and his mottled flush showed his anger. “And yet, you married her anyway,” he cried. “You whoreson. You wed a woman whose slippers you aren’t even good enough to kiss, for what? To pay your debt and bed your whores?” he spat.
“I suggest you leave,” Guilford said quietly.
For an infinitesimal moment, he considered remaining. He contemplated riling the deservedly outraged marquess in a defiant show.
And yet, to do so would create additional unrest for his wife.
He started. Where in hell did that worry come from? Leo shook his head hard. The sole reason he was concerned was because he required the Edgerton connection to Waterson… and respectability. Of course. That was the sole reason. Familial unity for his wife merely aided those efforts.
Leo released a beleaguered sigh. “Oh, very well. Gentlemen.” He touched the brim of an imagined hat and then quit the billiards room. As soon as he’d stepped out into the hall, he glanced up and down the corridors.
Humming The Rakes of Mallow, he strolled the length of the silent corridors. As he walked, he took in the ancestral portraits hanging upon the walls: ones of marquess’ past, bewigged gents alongside powered ladies. With each painting he passed, the passage of time was marked, giving way to more recent Edgertons.
His whistling faded to a slow stop.
The portrait of a little girl with golden curls and cornflower-blue eyes beckoned. Despite the white frock and tender years, there could be no doubting the figure reflected back was his wife. Leo glanced about and, finding himself alone still, examined the rendering. The artist had captured the likeness when Chloe was nine or mayhap ten. And yet, for all the remarkable likenesses that marked her as the woman he’d wed, there were shades that revealed a wholly different person.
He peered at a young Chloe Edgerton.
Unlike the mischievous glitter that lit his wife’s eyes now, there was an uncertainty in the girl before him. Shoulders hunched, eyes downcast, she was a shadow of the woman who’d invaded his household and presented terms of their marriage.
“Are you the rotter?”
He wheeled around. Two little girls stood several paces away. The elder of the pair lifted one of the rapiers in her hand. “Well?”
Oh, bloody hell. Proper dinners and now… discussions with children.
The world had gone insane. He yanked at his suddenly tight cravat. Children were innocent. As such, he’d not a bloody clue as to what to do with them.
The girl trotted over. “Is something wrong with your hearing?” she asked excitedly.
He bristled. “Certainly not.” His keen hearing had, in fact, saved his miserable hide scores of time from discovery.
Her face fell.
“Faith can’t.” The other curly-headed girl skipped over.
“Be. Quiet,” Faith gritted, nudging the garrulous one in the side.
Do not ask. Do not ask. He would only regret it. Alas… “Cannot?”
“Hear,” the smaller child piped in.
Her sister growled, “I can hear.”
“Not out of your right ear, Faith,” the smaller child insisted, pointing to her left lobe.
Ah, the girl was deaf.
While they bickered back and forth, Leo contemplated a path to freedom over his shoulder.
“I’m only partially deaf,” the older girl cried, stamping the tip of her rapier into the hardwood. The metal thrummed back and forth, forcing his attention back.
“Pfft,” he scoffed. “Beethoven is now nearly deaf in both ears, and he composed his Second Symphony in the state.”
The eldest child widened her eyes. “Who?”
“Beethoven?”
Both girls looked blankly back.
“The Sonata quasi una fantasia?”
“Mm. Mm,” the eldest child confirmed with a shake of her head.
Weren’t young ladies tasked with music lessons? “DaDaDaDaDaDa—Da-Da—Da—Da-Da.” He waved his finger in time to the beat.
“That’s horribly dreary,” the eldest child whispered.
Leo drew back. “Surely you’ve heard his works?” “Da. Da. Daaaa. Da-Da.” He proceeded to sing the lyric-less tune.
The different-aged girls, who could only be sisters, glanced at each other and dissolved into a fit of giggles.
“That is dreary,” he corrected. “Not knowing Beethoven,” he mumbled. “A splendid chap.” One Leo had met in his travels to Austria. “I’ll leave you ladies to your own pleasures.” He swept a bow and marched off.
He made it no farther than three paces.
“He was deaf, you say?” Faith called after him. Her voice echoed in the emptied corridors. The pair of girls instantly trotted over and stood side by side, blocking his path toward escape. The eldest sister pointed her rapier at his throat.
His lips twitched. “Chloe’s nieces?” Their stubbornness and spirit marked them as smaller versions of his Edgerton wife.
They nodded.
“The husband?” Faith countered.
“The same.” He sketched a bow.
“Hmph,” she said noncommittally, in a reply that might or might not have been an insult. In the end, her curiosity won out. “About this Beethoven. He was deaf in both ears, you say?”
“This Beethoven is deaf in both ears. He’s very much alive, I assure you. And,” he felt compelled to advise, “only one of the greatest musical minds of this time.”
“Never gave much attention to music lessons because of my ear,” Faith said quietly, lowering her rapier.
Disquieted by the emotion that lit the girl’s eyes, he tried to step around her. She stuck her rapier out, once again, blocking his escape. “Do you fence?”
“Do I…” he repeated slowly, feeling like one in the midst of a play without the benefit of his lines.
“I’m teaching Violet.”
“Shouldn’t you be abed or… or… doing whatever it is children do at this hour?”
The girl grinned widely. “We are. I fence.”
“Of course you do,” he muttered.
“And I’m learning.” Violet waved her fingertips.
Her elder sister went on as though she hadn’t spoken. “You could return to Uncle Gabriel and have him yell at you some more.” Faith lifted her little shoulders in a shrug. “Not really sure what else you are going to do, since my uncle threw you out.”
“Fair point,” he said under his breath.
When presented with joining his brother-in-law or interacting with this tenacious imp, he found himself seriously debating a plea for a truce with Waverly.
“What’s a pony son?” the small girl asked curiously.
“A pony… son?” he echoed. What in the blazes?
Faith sighed. “A whoreson. Uncle Gabriel called him a whoreson.”
His ears heated. Oh, bloody hell.
“Fencing it is, then,” he muttered and allowed the small pair to lead him off.