Bronwyn Scott's Sexy Regency Bundle (51 page)

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Pickpocket Countess

He gave Brandon a half-grin. 'But I can see my preaching falls on deaf ears. You've got that "morning after" glow about you.' Jack rose and put down his cup. 'I'll leave you to play house with your supposed betrothed and let your ruse its

course.'

Brandon drew a deep breath. 'That's another thing, Jack. I am not sure I want to see the ruse end.'

'Well, it has to eventually, unless you actually-' Jack broke off the sentence. Brandon was rewarded with a view of Jack at his most nonplussed, a feat few accomplished. 'Are you suggesting you would make the relationship more permanent in nature? Make The Cat your Countess?' Jack managed to get out when the initial shock passed.

'Yes, my Countess. I have not forgotten,' Brandon said placidly. 'It is time I marry and look to my nursery.'

Jack resumed his seat, scrubbing at his face with his hands.

'Yes, yes, of course it's time to spring the parson's mousetrap and all that. We're getting no younger, but why couldn't you find a nice debutante?'

Brandon hooted with disbelief. 'A nice debutante? Listen to yourself, Jack. I could no more settle for a nice, white-gowned virgin half my age than you could. Just because I must marry to beget an heir doesn't mean I'll leg-shackle myself to the first and her mother who come along. If that was the case, I would have married ages ago. There would have been no point in waiting. I have standards that must be met. I've waited to marry because no one has yet met them.'

'Until now? Surely you're not in love with her?'

'Until now, no one has provoked me enough to think of a more permanent arrangement,' Brandon said tentatively. 'As for love, well, I'm not sure I'd know exactly what that is, having not ever truly been in love.' He toyed with a pen, avoiding Jack's knowing gaze. Too many people thought love could be feigned if the prize was large enough. He wanted more than that.

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Brandon sighed heavily. 'I'm probably not in love with Nora any more than she's in love with me, but she makes me feel alive, Jack, in a way I've felt with no other. When I am with her, life is a grand romp.'

'An illegal romp, don't forget. Surely
that
can't be one of your standards.' Jack was all silky sarcasm. 'I admit I find myself insanely curious as to what those standards might be.

What does a thief have that an eligible girl of good family lacks?' Jack stretched out his booted legs and waved his empty coffee cup toward the decanters collected on the polished sideboard.

need something stronger than coffee, however, to get through this

Brandon rose and obliged, pouring a healthy dose of brandy into the cup before adding a splash of coffee from the silver urn on the tray.

Jack sipped and sighed deeply. 'Much better. Nothing like good French brandy to dull the shock that one's best friend has gone completely mad. Now, about those standards.'

'I want a wife who shares my causes and has a passion for the political welfare of the country.' Brandon began ticking his standards off on his fingers. 'I want a wife who cares for people.

I want a wife who has a healthy appetite for the bedroom and a sense of adventure. I want a woman who wants me for myself, who looks at me and doesn't see estates, titles, coronets and enormous pin allowances, but sees an intelligent man who thinks and has ideas of his own. In short, I want a woman who will be my partner in all aspects of my life.'

'In short, you want a paragon. The irony of it all is that you think you've found this paragon in the notorious Cat of Manchester, who is robbing your investors blind and hobbling the very ideas for which you want to be appreciated,' Jack asserted.

He shook his head sadly. 'I don't wish to demean your standards. We all want the paragon. In the end, we all settle for the and the glimmer of hope that we might make her

Pickpocket Countess

blank canvas into someone we can passably spend the rest of our lives with.'

'I don't settle,' Brandon said with conviction.

Jack rubbed his hands on his thighs. 'True enough. I've known you since our school days. You've always found a way to get what you want. It's what I like about you, Brandon. I hope she's worth it. For your sake, I hope she's not upstairs stealing your mother's damnable amethyst ring, again.'

Jack rose. 'I will take my leave of your hospitality. When you decide you need me, I'll be close by. Send word to the inn.

In the interim, I wish you well.'

Nora sleepily groped the big bed, searching for the warmth of Brandon's body. Her

hands found only cold sheets.

Disappointingly, Brandon's side of the bed was empty.

She pulled herself up into a sitting position and scanned the room,

for traces of him. His clothes were gone. He was up and dressed.

She sighed heavily, flopping back against the down- filled pillows. It was better this way. She could be dressed and gone out the window before he knew it.

The two of them were unsuited for a long-term future together, as much as she wished that could be different. The realisation that she
did
wish it could be different struck her with such force she sat upright, trying to quell her rising emotion.

Her mind cruelly played the 'what if' game. What if there could be more than a short-term relationship between them?

What if their passion was based on more than mutually shared lust? What if Brandon had been right, that they wanted the same things?

But they were only fantastical 'what ifs'. In order for them to come true the world would have to be a far different place, a place where Earls married outlaws, a place where The Cat was not needed. That would be a perfect world indeed, an utter