Rhys adored the early morning hours. It was that small sliver of time when all Polite Society slept on and the streets were largely quiet, the riding paths empty, and a man was free from bother.
Or a man was usually free from bother.
“Where in the blazes have you been?”
The following morning, that sharp whisper brought Rhys up short outside his chamber doors.
Given the owner of that equal parts furious and suspicious question and the unlikeliest use of blasphemy, he’d be foolish to not be suspicious.
With all the enthusiasm of one walking to face his hangman, Rhys forced his attention down the hall.
His mother stood, arms planted akimbo in a battle-ready position.
Oh, bloody hell. Here just one day and he’d already earned the Wrath of the Marchioness, as he’d taken to calling it over the years.
“Mama,” he called out. The bane of her existence, he’d worked diligently since his boyhood days to needle her at every turn.
Her grey eyebrows shot up, and she raced forward. “Hush,” she whispered, stealing a frantic glance about. “You will awaken the guests.”
And moving at anything other than a sedate pace?
This did not bode well for him. At all.
“Considering they are an entire corridor and no fewer than one hundred paces between us, I trust we should be quite safe from discovery,” he said drolly as he finished drawing the heavy oak slab closed.
He took a step.
His mother matched his movements.
Rhys feinted left.
She followed suit.
So he’d be forced into an early morning battle. Very well. Swallowing a sigh, Rhys rocked back on his heels. Given that the dowager marchioness had taken the whole of the years he’d known her to rising well after the sun had climbed high into the sky, these encounters were the worst for him and the wisest for her.
Unexpected moves from her that always saw him off-kilter.
By God, Wellington would have been wise to employ her all those years ago against Boney. The war would have not carried on for more than a month.
“I asked you a question,” she demanded in hushed tones, stealing another furtive look about.
“No, you urged me to silence lest I wake guests slumbering more than… one… two… three…” He silently counted the remaining panels. “Twenty doors away.”
She scowled; the wrinkled planes of her face deepening, highlighting her increasing years. The perpetual frown she wore made a lie out of all the words about one growing lax with age. “Do not try to distract me. I asked where you’ve been.”
Rhys lifted his hands in false supplication. “Given that you’ve discovered me exiting my rooms, I trust it should not be a question to merit that volatile reaction.”
The dowager marchioness alternated a suspicious stare between his door and the opposite end of the hall. “I know your flippant replies and shameful attempts at jest are meant to divert my attention from your… your… behavior.”
His behavior. At any other time, she would have been well within reason to question his whereabouts and pursuits. “Given that you’re personally responsible for all the guests,” he drawled, “I assure you, there are no hidden widows or naughty lovers hiding about.” He paused. “Though if you’d allow me to issue an invitation—”
She choked.
Rhys lifted his head in a mocking acknowledgement. “I take that as a no, then.”
His mother’s eyes bulged. “Y-you… y-you…” Scoundrel. “Scapegrace,” she settled for. But then, she brought her shoulders back and gave a flick of her canary yellow skirts. “I’ll not allow you to distract me.” She proceeded to tick off on her fingers. “First, you disappeared last evening. Disappeared, Rhys, when… when…” He winged an eyebrow. Color fired in her cheeks. “Guests were expecting to see you.”
“Guests?” he asked with feigned confusion.
“Aria arrived and you were nowhere to be found.”
The lady his mother expected him to wed had arrived which added a level of very real peril to his circumstances that had been previously missing. He fought the urge to yank at his suddenly too-tight cravat, briefly eying the path to freedom beyond her shoulder, contemplating escape.
Her gaze bore searchingly into him; probing his face. “Do you have nothing to say for yourself?”
As much as he’d sustained himself through her company over the years with a false brevity to rouse her annoyance, now he wanted done with the whole exchange. Restless. “Lettie enlisted my services and, as her brother, I obliged,” he said, with an unusual graveness.
“Enlisted your services?” she squawked. That break in her own calls for silence marked her rapidly spinning out of control temperament. “You are no servant, Rhys, no matter how uncouth and ill-mannered you so often are.”
He opened his mouth to make mention of the vixen with a tangle of golden curls, but something quelled the words on his lips. Some inexplicable need to keep that surprisingly enjoyable and private exchange with Lady Alice Winterbourne a secret that belonged only to him. As such, he settled for his usual expected dry humor. “Oh, come, Mama. It is one thing to disparage me. But the Brookfield staff? They are the model of decorum and respectability.”
His mother’s eyebrows dipped. “Furthermore, when have you been the devoted brother? If it were Miles, I would trust there was something honorable at play there, but you?” She scraped a derisive glance up and down his person.
He frowned as her barb found its mark. Mayhap it was the early morning hour…. or that the Christmastide season was nearly upon them. For the truth was… it was not her disgusted look or disparaging tone that struck uncomfortably close but rather her accurate claims about him as a brother. He had been a self-absorbed bastard these many years. His mother’s betrayal aside, he should have been there for Lettie.
“You’ve gone quiet,” she noted. “You are up to something.” She took a step closer, jolting him back from his maudlin musings.
He retreated a quick step. His back knocked into the heavy panel, rattling the wood.
And it spoke to her determination that the dowager marchioness didn’t give so much as a look or make mention about the noise. Going up on tiptoes, she peered at his face, the way only a leading gossip in Society could.
“Hmm,” she said noncommittally, sinking back on her heels. “Very well, then,” she said, with a surprising capitulation that only a fool would trust. And Rhys Brookfield was no fool… particularly where his ruthless mother was concerned. He’d born witness to the depths to which she would fall to orchestrate whatever ultimate end she wished her pawns-of-children to fulfill. “That will be all.”
“Always a pleasure, Mama,” he said in parting as he dropped a bow.
As he made a measured escape, he felt her gaze following him until he disappeared around the corner.
And feeling much like the troublesome boy whose knuckles she’d ordered his tutors to rap for misbehaving, he broke out into a quick run down the blessedly empty, quiet corridors.
He passed a young maid, exiting a room, with a cloth in her hand.
Her lips twitched, and she sank into a curtsy.
Not breaking stride, he winked, and continued on. Slightly breathless from his exertions, he skidded to a halt outside the breakfast rooms. At having his freedom once more, he whistled a naughty ditty, and entered.
“Babington,” he greeted the senior footman on duty, catching the other man mid-yawn.
“Beg pardon, Lord Rhys,” the fellow near in age to his own rushed.
The dowager marchioness’ effects on the servants had proven lasting; a staff eternally afraid a wrong move would see them turned off without a character reference. Waving off that needless apology, Rhys gathered a plate from the sideboard. “Not a thing to apologize for. Not as though I’d come upon you tupping a parlor maid,” he said in a bid at easing the other man’s unease.
Babington blanched and shook his head frantically, his gaze all over the room.
Rhys added a heap of kidneys to his full dish, and then slapped the servant on the back. “No worries, my good man. Nor would you find yourself turned off if you were because of me.”
The servant emitted a strangled sound, pointing a finger weakly beyond Rhys’ shoulder.
He froze. Oh, bloody hell.
Babington winced, and gave a confirming nod.
“A lady?” he mouthed.
“A lady, my lord,” the pained footman confirmed in like silence.
Bloody, bloody hell. Which guest would arise at this ungodly hour? Other than his mother to chastise and threaten him, of course. “My sister?” he ventured hopefully, still continuing their noiseless discourse.
The footman gave his head a regretful shake.
Shocking and scandalizing Polite Society was certainly not new for him, but even he drew the proverbial line at crass talk in the presence of respectable ladies.
Plate in hand, Rhys wheeled about slowly and faced the latest scandalized guest.
Of course.
Alice lifted her fingers in an insolent little waggle; her expression impressively deadpan.
Rhys unleashed a stream of curses in his head.
He should expect that a young woman who’d gone dashing about in a snowstorm would rise before the sun.
Rhys searched for the horrified shock and outrage over his ribbing with the footman. Instead, a wholly unaffected Alice popped a piece of plum cake into her mouth.
“Is it too much to hope you did not hear all that?” he called from the sideboard.
The young lady swallowed and then dabbed at her lips. “Which part? Your pardoning Mr. Babington’s yawn?” A sparkle glinted in the troublesome minx’s eyes. “Or your kindly overlooking any morning tupping he’d been doing?”
Babington dissolved into a fit of choking.
And Rhys, one of Society’s most outrageous rogues responsible for blushing matrons, misses, and wicked wantons all over London, found his neck burning with color.
“Worry, not.” Her eyes danced with mischief. “I’ve never been accused of being a proper miss.” The young lady dismissively, grabbed a small—unnoticed until now—leather book propped open beside her plate and dedicated all her attentions to it.
His ears pricked up. “Oh?” Rhys was an excellent reader on those wicked ladies who were fair game and those virtuous ones to be avoided at all proverbial costs. He’d not been wrong before, but neither was he at all disappointed if the spitfire before him was, in fact—
“My brother is a rake,” she said simply, the way she might have said she preferred the sugared pastries to the non-powdered treats.
“Ah,” he was unable to keep the regret from tinging that utterance. Because really, what was a gent to say to that?
Alice scrunched her nose up, seeming content to carry on the conversation without further contribution from him beyond that one syllable utterance. “Or rather, he was a rake. He is—” She paused, sadness filling her revealing eyes. “Married. He is married,” she softly amended.
And just like that, the teasing, mischievous lady of moments ago went dark, replaced once again with this solemn, downtrodden miss.
Drawn to the table, he abandoned his usual chair in favor of the one beside the young lady. Rhys waved Babington off, and claimed the high-back velvet upholstered dining chair. “Am I to take it you dislike said wife?” There could have been no missing her outward reaction, and one so visceral, at that. “What is it? Does she take umbrage to your being underfoot?”
“Underfoot?” she blurted like he’d gone mad. And mayhap he had. For what else was to account for sitting beside his sister’s innocent friend, a respectable lady, and engaging her about her family. “No. I quite love my sister-in-law.”
“Of course,” he said slowly, as though he saw the reason for her effrontery. When in truth, he saw not an ounce of logic to, of, or about Lady Alice Winterbourne.
Giving her head another dismissive shake, she resumed her reading.
Yet—he drummed his fingertips upon the arm of his chair—she was not aggrieved over her brother’s choice in bride, so what accounted for the downward tilt to her lips. Rosebud flesh that had far better uses and purposes than heart-rending frowns.
It hardly mattered whether she was sad. Or angry… or anything. She was nothing more than a stranger—albeit, Lettie’s friend. That was, of course, what accounted for the need to chase back that melancholy and replace it with the earlier deviltry he’d spied from her.
“So you heard all of my exchange with Babington,” he prodded, settling into his seat. A real gentleman would abandon the matter altogether and make pleasantries about the unseasonably chilled weather they were having.
Alice flipped the page. “Which part? Your words to Babington about his tupping a parlor maid?” Rhys’ lips twitched. “Or your generous pardon if he were discovered in such a state.”
The slight sound of the page being turned was drowned out by another bout of noisy exhalations from Babington.
Alice glanced up from her page, peering past Rhys’ shoulder. “Though, I believe a far better question for Mr. Babington would be whether he is requiring a doctor to see to his persistent cough.”
A grin turned Rhys’ lips in a wide, easy smile. Not the affected roguish half-grins he generally donned with ladies, but a genuine expression of mirth.
That promptly faded as the lady returned her attention to her reading selection.
Accepting the proffered cup of coffee, Rhys blew on the steaming contents, and studied the young woman from over the rim—the wholly removed woman. Of course, it was always far safer when a virtuous miss was removed… particularly when that woman also happened to be his sister’s closest friend.
One hand on the book, the other holding a piece of French baguette in hand, she awkwardly turned the page.
It was a sad day as a rogue when he’d been so dismissed by a lady, for a book.
He took a small sip and grimaced at the sharp sting of the acrid beverage. “I certainly see why my sister approves of you, Alice,” he commented, matter-of-factly. Spirited, with a quick tongue and directness, she was unlike the simpering ladies who practiced an unspoken language behind their fans.
Alice paused, mid-turn. “I’m her friend.”
He’d have to be deafer than a post to fail to hear her censure.
He gave her a questioning look.
“I’m not a piece of horseflesh or a pastry selection, Lord Rhys. I’m a friend,” she said simply. Licking the tip of her index finger, she completed the page turn.
Rhys sat there, flummoxed, riveted by that innocent and yet wholly seductive for it, gesture. He had a sudden urge to draw that finger between his lips and suck.
He groaned.
The morning meal had been a horrid idea. And if the lady were given to rising early, he’d be better served avoiding the meal as long as she was here.
The young lady picked her head up. “Is everything all…?” As their gazes met, a becoming pink blush colored her cheeks.
So she was not wholly immune to him.
Around another sip of coffee, he grinned again and, emboldened by that delicate color, he stretched his legs out comfortably before him. “You still never did say what had you running all over the English countryside in the dead of night, Alice.”
Had he not been watching her so closely, he would have failed to note the way she stilled. Her long, graceful neck slightly bent, straightened. “No, I did not.”
He waited, counting the ticks of the clock. When after the tenth and another quick turn of her page, it became apparent that she intended to say not another word.
Rhys continued his study of her, taking a periodic drink of his now lukewarm brew.
The lady abruptly set her book down and dropped her elbows on a table that would have earned his mother’s highest rebuke. And for it, she garnered his ever-increasing appreciation. “May I ask you a question?”
Given that he’d posed the same query to her more than four times since yesterday, and still hadn’t received an answer, it was hardly fair play. More intrigued than proud, he inclined his head.
“Why do you drink it?”
His brow creased.
She pointed to his cup. “You’ve grimaced after every sip. Why drink it if you despise it?”
His mouth parted in brief startlement, which he instantly concealed behind an easy grin. “I’ll explain my coffee indulgence when you explain what had you running about my family’s properties.”
She instantly went close-mouthed, and returned prompt attention to her book.
His intrigue redoubled. Had she been any other woman, he’d have accused her of playing coy in a bid to earn his attentions. Alice Winterbourne, however, had shown far more interest in her baguette and plum cake than she had in his presence.
And the only reason that irked was because he took pride in the image of rogue he’d cultivated. Yes, that was the only reason.
Shoving back his chair, Rhys climbed to his feet. Plate in hand, he wandered closer to the impervious miss.
She glanced briefly up, following his movements with quizzical eyes.
“May I take this seat?” he asked in quiet tones.
“Given they are all your seats, I trust you could take them apart and use them for kindling if you so much as wished.”
“With my mother?” He snorted. “I’m fairly certain that would qualify as an offense punishable by exile.”
She laughed. The sound was clear and bell-like, innocent… and one wholly unfamiliar with the women he kept company with. Not that he was keeping company with her. They were merely two guests forced together at a holiday house party, now breaking their fast. Despite all those assurances, her laughter was infectious and he joined in.
Footsteps sounded at the doorway, and they both looked up.
The bespectacled pup who’d arrived yesterday with his too-tall hat and furred cloak, stared back—stricken.
Alice’s laughter abruptly cut out.
And as that pair silently looked at one another, a thick tension fell over the room, replacing the earlier cheer.
Rhys narrowed his eyes.
So this was the reason for the late night jaunt to The Copse—the too-stern looking Pratt fellow, doing a rather poor job in pretending he wasn’t paying attention to the lady.
Surely she, a minx who freely cursed and boldly laughed, wasn’t pining after a stiff, humorless pup like Henry Pratt, brother to the recently reformed rogue, Nolan Pratt?
And sitting back in his chair, Rhys cursed the unwelcome intrusion that had shattered his previous interlude with Alice Winterbourne.