An Introduction to Pleasure (31 page)

Rutholm Park seemed cavernous, empty and he could find no comfort there anymore. So much so that less than a week after Lysandra’s departure in Weatherfield’s carriage, he had followed in his own, back to London and a life he hoped he could find there.

A life without her.

He would try not to think about the fact that she was comfortably situated in Weatherfield’s house for her now. In
his
life. In
his
bed.

That was why he had come out, after all. To forget. He had been invited to his brother’s home in order to meet his fiancée at last, but his ill humor hadn’t allowed him to fully participate in the small party of just a few friends. He stood back as his brother chatted with friends and Adela flitted from group to group with a smile and kind word for them all.

It all seemed like it was happening in slow motion, or that he was watching the scene through a glass. Because all he could think about was Lysandra.

Andrew stifled an angry growl and slugged back his drink.

“Are you quite all right?”

He glanced up to find Adela coming across the room toward him with a concerned expression on her pretty face.

“Yes, Lady Adela,” he forced. “Of course.”

She frowned as she stopped in front of him and slipped a stray lock of blonde curls behind her ear. “It is only that you have a very…stern look on your face. We haven’t had much of a chance to speak tonight, I hope that fact doesn’t mean you disapprove your brother’s choice.”

Andrew drew back, partly due to Adela’s boldness in approaching the subject so directly, partly out of horror that his attitude could be misconstrued in such a way.

“Oh no, my lady,” he insisted. “I promise you that my mood is not caused in any way by a poor reaction to you.”

She smiled with a hint of relief, but he could still see her hesitance about him in her eyes. He didn’t want that. His brother would marry this woman and his brother was one of the few people Andrew knew he could depend upon in any situation. If Adela didn’t like him, or feared he didn’t like her, it could affect and change his relationship with Sam…and not in a positive way.

He pushed thoughts of Lysandra as far back into his mind as he could and refocused on the lady before him.

“I have been watching you tonight,” he said, “Even if I have been too absorbed in my own little troubles to speak to you at length. In fact, I much approve my brother’s choice of bride. You are obviously a fine lady and a good match.”

She smiled, though it wasn’t an entirely happy smile.

“And there is the fact that I love him,” she added gently.

Andrew looked at her closely once again. She was a direct person. He found he rather liked it. In many ways, that quality reminded him of Lysandra.

“Yes,” Andrew said softly. “Which could very well be the most important, and most overlooked, quality that recommends you.”

She shifted. “You lost your wife, and it was a love match, was it not?”

Andrew clenched his fists. Just a few weeks ago, this question would have ended the conversation. But things had changed for him since then. He slowly nodded, forcing himself to stay.

“Yes,” he all but whispered.

“Then you know how rare and valuable love is,” Adela said with a long gaze in his brother’s direction. There was nothing but utter devotion on her face. True love that, in that instant, Andrew envied. Adela could love Sam, marry Sam, freely.

“I do know,” he said. “Cherish it every moment.”

“I intend to do so,” Adela said with a quick blush and a glance back at him. “I have always been of a mind that if one is so lucky as to find something as rare as love, especially in our class where marriages for money or rank are so valued, one should hold on to it at any cost.”

Andrew flinched. He had found love not once, but twice. Once he had lost it. Last week he had thrown it away like it was garbage. And now her words stabbed at his heart and made him hate himself in all new ways.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “But what about love that is considered inappropriate?”

She smiled, and it lit up her face. Andrew could see why his brother was so besotted.

“How could love be wrong or inappropriate?” she asked.

He couldn’t help a smile of his own. This woman was bright and beautiful, but perhaps a bit naïve. “Come now, my dear, you must realize that it could be. Let us say that I decided to…marry someone utterly inappropriate tomorrow. A woman of no rank. Perhaps a woman with a low reputation due to…circumstances out of her control. Can you truly say that you wouldn’t have to reconsider your marriage to my brother since my scandal would affect you and your reputation?”

He blinked. He had just described a marriage to Lysandra, at least on the surface, though he hadn’t added that the woman in question was beautiful and funny, kind and sweet, perfect in every way to him and for him. He hadn’t mentioned that he loved her with everything in his soul.

Adela stared at him as if he had sprouted a second head, and Andrew’s heart sank. For all her grand notions about love, of course she would want to avoid a scandal caused by him.

“I don’t even understand the question,” she finally said. “Why in the world would I leave the love of my life just because
you
married a woman?”

“The scandal,” Andrew repeated. “Would it not run rampant in the circumstances I described?”

Adela pinched her lips, pondering the question he had asked. “Before I answer that, I need more information.”

“Very well.”

“Firstly, the woman in this scenario, you say she is of no rank, but her low reputation comes from circumstances out of her control.” She frowned. “Is she a good woman?”

“Very,” he said, his voice growing low. “The very best.”

Adela stared at him for a long moment and then nodded slowly. “I see. And is she of intelligence and wit?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“I suppose the most important question comes next. Do you love her?”

“I do,” he answered before he realized that they were no longer talking hypothetically.

They looked at each other for a long moment. Adela’s brown eyes were soft with understanding as she said, “Then I would say to you, bring on the scandal. It sounds like this woman would be a good friend to have. Someone who has come through heartache and maintains wit and charm is far more interesting than someone who has been kept on a pedestal all her life.” Adela touched his arm briefly. “If you love her, don’t think of reputation or rank or anything else but your heart, Andrew. Follow that and it will very rarely steer you wrong.”

Andrew looked at this woman. She had been protected her entire life, sheltered by a duke for a father, groomed in the ways of Society, and yet she was so much more. She was teaching him a lesson and offering him a strange permission to love Lysandra.

He shook his head. “Well, if she existed, then I suppose I would have to follow your advice.”

Adela was quiet for a long moment, and Andrew jolted as he realized that she
knew
about Lysandra. Sam must have told her all about their night at the opera before Andrew took Lysandra to the country and ruined everything. Adela knew exactly what Lysandra was and she still told him to follow his heart.

She smiled. “Well, if we are only having a broad debate on the subject, then you know my stance. And I look forward to these conversations throughout our years as family. I can see you and I will have spirited debates regularly. I shall have to study up on my current political and social matters before we tackle the next one.”

Andrew smiled as she squeezed his hand, then his brother approached and the topic mercifully shifted. But even as he attempted to engage himself in the party more fully, he couldn’t help but have his thoughts turn back again and again to Lysandra. Until he brought up the topic with Adela, he hadn’t fully realized that he didn’t want Lysandra as a mistress. He wanted her as a wife.

But he had lost her…given her away, actually. He had no idea if he could win her back, especially now that she was in an arrangement with another man. But he had to try. Only if he was going to do that, he had to come to her at his very best. With all the reasons she would refuse him resolved. And with his heart on his sleeve the way he had avoided for three long years.

In short, he had some work to do.

Lysandra turned the pages in the copy of
Debrett’s
, which Vivien had brought over to her the previous day. After a lengthy explanation of what had happened with both Andrew and Miles, during which Lysandra was certain that the courtesan knew she had fallen in love with Andrew, Vivien had agreed to help her find another match. The copy of
Debrett’s
was so that Lysandra would know the men who would be coming to a party that very night, men who might be the ones for her. Vivien had even helpfully circled the top candidates and made notes in the margins as an accommodating guide.

Lysandra’s head spun and her stomach turned as she read about each gentleman and tried to picture herself surrendering to one of them. Some faceless man with a title who would take her on as a burden in exchange for… Well, she knew exactly what it was in exchange for.

She shivered as she closed the book and paced to look at the fire. Its proximity did nothing to warm her and she was about to return to her distasteful reading assignment when the door to her parlor opened.

She turned to find a man standing there who she did not know and her new butler, Adams, standing behind him.

“I’m sorry, miss,” the servant said weakly. “He was insistent.”

The stranger turned and glared at her butler. “Get out.”

Lysandra froze, and fear gripped her. Not because some stranger had burst into her home, was dismissing her servant and had God only knew what plans for her…but because as soon as he spoke, she knew he wasn’t a stranger at all.

Adams scurried from the room, and the man closed the door and turned to glare at her. She straightened her shoulders.

“You must be the Earl of Sutherland.”

He arched a brow in surprise. “And how do you know that, chit?”

She shrugged. “You look like your son. You sound a bit like Andrew, as well.”

More than a bit on both accounts, actually. The older man had the same blond hair, the same strength to his tone as Andrew did. And, of course, she had seen his picture in Andrew’s gallery.

He nodded once. “You are correct, Miss Keates, I am
Lord Callis’s
father. I came to the home he purchased you in Bikenbottom Court first and was surprised to hear that you had departed there. But I suppose a woman of your ilk has no thought about moving on to the friend of her once protector.”

Lysandra pursed her lips. “I see. And what ilk is that, my lord?”

His eyes grew wider at her question and perhaps the very calm way she delivered it, which made her happier than it should have.

“A whore, Miss Keates.”

She shut her eyes briefly, then opened them to look at him evenly. “If that is what I am, and if I am no longer affiliated with your son, then why did you come here?”

“Because ever since Andrew returned to London he has been moping about, mooning over you, apparently. I came to your home there to pay you to leave him be. And once I realized you had left his…
employ
, I came here to tell you to stay away.”

Lysandra blinked. Andrew was back in London? Even though he hated the city and had fulfilled his quarterly duty to his father? He was so close and yet so far away…

She shook her head. No use pondering that overly much, nor the bewitching idea that he was actually moping around, mooning after her. His father had to be wrong on that account.

“Lord Sutherland,” she said softly, yet succinctly. “I have no idea what you have heard about me, but let me tell you, for my own edification, that I am not a whore. I am a woman whose circumstances have put her in a position she never thought she would be in. I am a daughter, a friend, a woman not unlike any in your own life. I was simply born in the wrong part of the city to belong where you live.”

Lord Sutherland blinked, but she seemed to have shocked him into silence, for he didn’t try to interrupt. Lysandra continued as quickly as she could so that he wouldn’t.

“As for your son, I did not leave him. He no longer wanted me. So the idea that he is mooning over me is a ridiculous one. And I have no intention of any further pursuit of him. My heart has been broken once, I am not so foolish as to put it out on display to be crushed a second time.”

The older man’s brow wrinkled. “I see.”

“Yes. And now I hate to be rude, but since you have been thus far, I would ask you to please leave. You have nothing to fear from me when it comes to Andrew…Lord Callis, I assure you.”

She motioned to the door and tensed as she waited for Lord Sutherland to argue with her further. To scold her for daring to rise to his level and try to put him out. Instead he stared at her for a long moment and then gave a brief bow.

“I apologize, Miss Keates. I thought I understood the situation, but I think I see it far more clearly now. You needn’t worry about me darkening your door again. Good day.”

He turned and exited the room without another word. Lysandra collapsed into the nearest chair as soon as he was gone. What in the world had just happened?