Lords of Scandal: The Beleaguered Lord Bourne / The Enterprising Lord Edward. Кейси Майклс

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      “Snicker all you wish, you cynic,” Ozzy shot back, thinking to trump Kit’s ace, “but you’ll soon be hounding me to get you a voucher—need one, you know, if you’re on the hangout for a wife. Stands to reason you’ll be wanting to settle down now that you’re a blinkin’ earl.”

      Kit drank deep from his glass. “I’ll take you up on that offer of securing a voucher, but I have to tell you, friend, I have been nothing if not thorough since last we met. Within a week of hitting these shores—having happily put those months of convalescence in Portugal behind me—I acquired a title, a large estate, a, I must say, considerable fortune, and a wife.”

      Ozzy sat up straight in his chair, knocking his halffull glass over into his lap in the process. “Ain’t you the downy one! How could you get yourself tied up so fast? It’s not like you was hanging out for a wife so soon—no rich young bachelor would be so dense as to forgo the joy of wading through the debutantes for at least one Season on the town. Tell you what, you were in your cups—or suffering from some lingering fever caused by your wound. I’m right, aren’t I? Say I’m right, Kit, and then tell me her name. Is she pretty?”

      “Put a muzzle on it, Ozzy,” Kit implored, his head beginning to reflect the combined assault of drink and his friend’s garrulous tongue. “Her name is Jane Maitland, and her father’s land runs alongside my estate.”

      “Greedy bugger, ain’t you?” slipped in Mr. Norwood, earning himself a hard stare from the earl, who had hoped to find more sympathy from his oldest and best friend.

      “That’s an insult, Ozzy, damned if it ain’t,” the new earl declared, slurring his words only slightly. “Damned if I won’t cut you dead when next we meet. Besides, Jennie’s a charming enough nitwit; I might have pursued her anyway, without her father threatening revenge if I didn’t do right by her.”

      “You did wrong by her? And who’s Jennie? Thought you said her name was Jane.” Clearly Ozzy was perplexed. “You know, Kit, sometimes you don’t make a whole lot of sense.”

      “I’ve been known to have that reputation,” Kit said ruefully. “Ozzy,” he continued, leaning forward across the table confidingly, “I need your word of honor that this goes no further.”

      “Word of a gentleman!” Ozzy swore, then hiccupped. “I’ll be quiet as a tomb, I swear it.” He leaned forward to put his nose smack against Kit’s. “Spill your guts, my friend, Ozzy’s here.”

      And so, as the dusk gave way to darkness, and before drunkenness turned to near insensibility, Kit told his tale to his awestruck audience.

      When the story was done and Ozzy had commiserated with his friend’s ill luck, the question was raised: “And what are you going to do about the chit? Can’t wish her gone, can’t do her in, not without the father kicking up a fuss.”

      “Do with her?” Kit repeated, concentrating on the mighty task of directing his hand in the general direction of the bottle before him. “I don’t see that I have to do anything with her. After all, Ozzy, how much trouble can one small female be?”

      FOR THE NEXT WEEK, Kit was conspicuous in Berkeley Square only by his absence—a fact Jennie duly took note of, sent up fervent thanks for, and secretly credited to her masterful handling of that single interview the day following their hasty marriage. Sure that her parting shot had put her firmly in the position of power—with the tenor and direction of their marriage to be dictated solely by her—she felt she had left the earl with no option but to cool his heels while she became “more comfortable” with their delicate situation.

      And she had been immensely “comfortable” in his absence, as Kit had seemed to abandon even his half-hearted suggestion that they get to know one another better. If the truth be told, there were times Jennie almost forgot she was married at all, pretending instead that she was in town for the come-out her father had promised, then conveniently forgotten to deliver. If only Renfrew would refrain from calling her “my lady” every time she so much as passed in the hallway. And if Bundy would only cease her endless sermons on the behavior befitting a countess (and the folly of thinking one could play with fire without being burned—as if Jennie’s inadvertent compromise was the act of a misbehaving child with Kit cast in the role of a highly combustible match). And if only Goldie would stop dropping into a comical knee-cracking curtsy each time Jennie looked her way—which had driven Jennie to walking about with her eyes averted in some other direction, leading to more than a few stubbed toes and bruised shins.

      But her companions as well as the facts were against her. Only Kit, by his absence, gave her any respite, and at times she could almost find it in her heart to be in charity with the man. Almost, but not quite. After all, if not for his, as Bundy called them, “male urges,” she’d still be at home, dreaming safe dreams about the handsome knight on a white charger who would rescue her from the fire-breathing dragon and carry her off to his castle, where they would live happily ever after.

      But even though he was seldom seen, the earl’s presence in Berkeley Square could not be denied. Every day after rising at the heathen hour of eleven, Kit breakfasted in his rooms, allowed himself to be dressed by Leon, who was still determined to turn a perfectly presentable Corinthian into a dashing darling of fashion, and exited the mansion, his departing form variously disappearing around the corner of the square on foot, vaulting into the seat of his new curricle and giving his horses the office to start, or bending himself into the smart town carriage that then bore him off in the regal style befitting his station—always with Jennie discreetly watching his leave-takings from behind her curtained window, happily waving him on his way. Where he went did not concern her. She was only grateful to have him gone.

      Renfrew, on the other hand, had a pretty good idea of just what his lordship’s travels encompassed. Struts down Bond Street on the arms of his cronies, tours through an assortment of low taverns, forays into the world of ivory turners and cardsharps at seamy private gaming hells, hours spent in the blue room at Covent Garden negotiating an opera dancer’s current asking price for her oftsolid virtue, and an innocent prank or two aimed at livening the watch’s dull existence would all number among the earl’s activities, unless things had changed mightily since Renfrew was last in London town.

      Natural high spirits and the thrill of being reunited with his boyhood friends might have explained this earnest pursuit of pleasure that nightly had Kit beating the rising sun home by less than an hour, but Renfrew knew there was another, deeper reason.

      It was the dream. The dream that sent Renfrew scurrying from his warm bed on the first night of the new earl’s residence at Bourne Manor, the wicked, panic-filled dreams that tore ragged moans and hoarse screams from the sleeping man’s throat until Leon’s soothing voice could penetrate the panic and lull the tormented earl back to sleep.

      Leon either did not know or would not divulge the nature of the recurring nightmare that had the earl calling the name Denny over and over again, the memory whose nocturnal reenactment moved the man to dry sobs and broken pleas for help.

      The dream seemed to have disappeared, the last nightmare occurring the night before the earl’s marriage, but Renfrew knew it wasn’t so. The earl was fighting the nightmare in the only way he knew—by not falling into bed until he was either too exhausted or too deep in his cups to dream at all.

      The old butler, who had served the Wilde family man and boy, could only stand back and let his master battle with his private demons, knowing the outcome but not daring to overstep his place by telling his lordship he was fighting a losing battle.

      Renfrew could only watch and hope, believing the СКАЧАТЬ