Never Lie to a Lady (6 page)

He looked down his hawkish, arrogant nose, and lifted one eyebrow. “I cannot say,” he answered. “Will it result in further threats to my life or my manhood?”

She ignored that, for she could see that he was struggling mightily to suppress a grin. “Could I ask you—or what I meant was—” She paused to lick her lips uncertainly. “Is it possible that you might be able to forget that…that last night ever happened?”

The crook in his eyebrow went up another notch. “Oh, not in a million years,” he murmured, leaning just a little nearer. “I shall take the memory of that lush, sensuous mouth of yours to the grave, my dear. And then there is the perfect turn of your fine, firm derrière beneath my hand, and the almost searing heat of your—”

“I did not mean it quite literally,” she interjected.

“Ah,” he said, his eyes drifting down her length. “But you will not mind if I occasionally fantasize, Miss Neville, about what might have been? Here in London, the nights can be cold and lonely.”

“Lord Nash, please.” Xanthia felt the heat rise to her face. “I exhibited an unfathomable lack of judgment, and I wish you would not remind me of it.”

“But if I cannot forget it, why should you?” His voice flowed over her like warm velvet. “Indeed, Miss Neville, you have cut me to the quick. I had hoped that there was some small remnant of that little interlude which you, too, might wish to cling to.”

Xanthia tried to look grave. “Never mind that,” she said. “All I am saying, sir, is that…well, I am going to be out in society a little more than I had expected. I beg you to never, ever mention what happened to anyone else.”

He drew back a pace. “Good Lord, Miss Neville!” he answered. “What manner of man do you think me?”

She bit her lip, and glanced up at him. “A gentleman, I hope?”

“A gentleman, indeed,” he murmured. “I should sooner have my fingernails ripped out by a French inquisitionist than share such an intimate and treasured memory.”

Xanthia looked away. “Thank you,” she said. “I do not ask this lightly—and not even for myself.”

He shocked her then by touching her gently under the chin and drawing her face back to his. “If not for yourself,” he asked quietly, “then for whom do you ask it?”

She lowered her gaze, and he dropped his hand. “For Lord and Lady Sharpe,” she managed to say. “I must chaperone Lady Louisa through the remainder of her season. I shall even have to appear at Almack’s. I fear my cousin’s health has taken a fragile turn, and she cannot attend to it.”

“Good Lord! Almack’s?” His black eyes danced with laughter. “And you shall
go
?”

Her gaze snapped back to his. “You doubtless find that humorous,” she returned. “But I have little choice in the matter. And you may believe me when I say there are a thousand things I should rather be doing than rubbing elbows with the
ton
.”

He held her eyes for a long moment, some nameless emotion sketching over his features. “Well, then,” he finally said. “Perhaps we are destined to meet again after all, Miss Neville.”

“Oh, I doubt it.” She managed a teasing smile. “You do not look the Almack’s type to me. I should lay odds they won’t even let you in the front door.”

Again, he lifted one elegant shoulder. “One never knows,” he murmured. “What sort of odds are you offering?”

Xanthia laughed. “Oh, just a straight wager,” she said. “I must have a spare twenty-pound note lying about the house somewhere.”

Nash smiled tightly. “Tempting, Miss Neville, but I think the take would have to be a good deal richer to get me into
that
sort of gaming hell,” he said. “Too many men have lost their most valuable asset inside Almack’s lofty portals.”

Xanthia lifted her eyebrows. “What sort of asset?”

Lord Nash flashed his wolfish grin. “Their priceless bachelorhood,” he answered. “Now I bid you good evening, my dear, until we meet again. I believe I can find my own way out.”

Amidst a tempest of emotions, Xanthia bathed and dressed for dinner. What a shock it had been to find Nash—
Lord
Nash—casually reclined in her brother’s best chair and looking very much at home. Today he had seemed so very dark and tall—and altogether more
man
than she had remembered. In all the rush of Xanthia’s workday, and in all the consternation over Pamela’s health, she had somehow forced away the memory of last night’s foolhardy escapade.

Well, that was not wholly true, she admitted, studying herself in the dressing mirror as she fastened her second earbob. The memory of Lord Nash’s touch had lingered, hovering in the back of her mind, and engendering vague feelings of embarrassment—interspersed with more than a few stabs of regret. And upon seeing him again, once the initial shock was past, the regret had cut like a keen blade. In the light of day, it was obvious just how striking a gentleman he was.

He was not handsome, no. Not in the English way. But he was elegance personified; lean and dark, like a cat prowling through a moonlit wood. There was an air of intrigue about the man which made one yearn to know him better in every sense of the word. Today Lord Nash had worn his heavy, too-long hair swept off his high forehead like a mane of sable. His cloak, an almost old-fashioned bit of elegance, had looked to be made of the most supple, finely draped wool imaginable, and his dark gray coat had molded beautifully to the width of his shoulders.

His face, too, was remarkable. Those hard planes and angles held a severity and a certain majesty which she had not noticed the previous evening. And his eyes—oh, God, those obsidian eyes! They were almost exotic in appearance, and set at just a hint of an angle, as if the blood of a Mongol horde coursed through his veins.

All of it left Xanthia wondering. What if she had not left him standing on the balcony last night? What if she had been daring enough to act on her fantasies? What if she had simply given him her name and accepted his bold invitation into his bed?

He would have refused her, that was what would have happened. Once Lord Nash had learned she was unwed, he would have backed away as surely as if she had just burst into flames. He had the air of a man who had been singed before.

On a sigh, Xanthia straightened up from the mirror and looked herself straight in the eye.
Forget him
, she told herself.
It will never happen. Not with Nash, and not with any other man.
Well, not unless she wanted Gareth—and Gareth wanted far more than Xanthia was prepared to give.

With Gareth there had once been passion, yes. And a sincere friendship, too. But Xanthia understood too well that a woman, once she married, became nothing but her husband’s property. It was not that she
believed
Gareth would have wrested control of Neville Shipping from her, but merely that he would have had the legal right to do so. And it would have been
her
choice to give him that power over her and all that she had worked for. She loved him. But she did not love him enough for that.

In the dining room, she and Kieran passed the first two courses of dinner catching up on the day’s post. Kieran was not a man given to casual conversation, but there was a little news from home in the form of a letter from a neighboring plantation, and one of Kieran’s tenants in Barbados had written to ask a rather convoluted question about water rights. Mundane business, to be sure, but it was the essence of their life together.

Kieran and Luke, and eventually Martinique, whom Luke had adopted, were all the real family Xanthia had ever known. And they were all she needed. Suddenly, however, in the midst of passing a platter of buttered parsnips down the table, Xanthia was struck with a vision of her hand on Pamela’s gently rounding belly. She must have faltered, for Kieran grabbed the dish and drew it from her grasp. “All right, Zee?” he murmured, casting her a curious glance.

Xanthia forced a smile. “The dish was a little heavy.”

Kieran motioned for more wine, then sent the footmen from the room. Xanthia knew the pointed questions were about to begin, but she rarely feared her brother’s wrath. Indeed, she understood him better than anyone—which was to say not very well, and yet well enough to grasp the one truth which eluded almost everyone. Each blunt and heavy-handed thing the great Baron Rothewell did was motivated by a bone-deep sense of duty; a duty he had been neither born to nor trained for. A duty which he had brought upon himself—or so he believed.

Their elder brother’s untimely death had scared them both deeply, for in one horrifying instant, the brave trio of orphans had become but two. And neither she nor Kieran had been prepared for it. So she forgave Kieran his meddling and his barking, and bore it with as much fortitude as she could muster.

Kieran was circling the wine around the bowl of his glass and staring into it almost blindly. “I wish to hear all about this Nash fellow, my dear,” he said. “I gather you met him at Pamela’s?”

Xanthia lowered her eyes. “In passing.”

“Well, you must have made quite an impression, Zee,” he went on. “You realize, of course, that Gareth Lloyd’s heart will be broken if you marry your Lord Dark-and-Dangerous?”

Xanthia stopped nudging her peas from one side of the plate to the other. “I beg your pardon?” she said. “If I
what
?”

Kieran eyed her from across the table. “If you marry Nash.”

Xanthia’s eyes felt as round as her dinner plate. “What in heaven’s name gave you such a notion?”

“Perhaps it was the fact that the man asked permission to court you,” Kieran returned. “What, did he not come to the point?”

Xanthia was aghast. “He certainly did not.”

“Good.” Kieran took up his knife and deftly sliced the leg off his roast chicken. “I hoped he had cast aside the notion.”

“Surely—” Xanthia’s voice hit an oddly sharp note. “Surely, Kieran, you cannot be serious about this?”

“He asked permission to court you,” said Kieran more firmly. “And I put him off. I suggested he find someone younger, and more biddable. Besides, he clearly knows next to nothing
about
you, Zee, so—” Suddenly, he halted. “I hope, my dear, that I have not misinterpreted your feelings for the fellow?”

Xanthia shook her head. “No.”

No. The answer was definitely
no
. And now the only feeling Xanthia was suffering was the slightest sense of light-headedness. Lord Nash must be perfectly mad. Had he really believed he had somehow tainted Xanthia’s precious virtue? With just a
kiss
?

But it had not been just a kiss, had it? At the mere memory, a faint tug of desire went twisting through her, ratcheting up her breath. Xanthia closed her eyes. Good Lord, if she allowed herself to think of it, even for an instant, she could still feel that sweet, languorous yearning which his mouth and his touch had aroused. It made one think of candlelight, and of soft linen sheets, and of…

No. It was not just a kiss. And Nash was right. Had it been Lady Louisa whom he had so flagrantly caressed on the terrace last night, Sharpe would have had him leg-shackled before noon. And he would have deserved it, for Louisa was obviously an innocent. But Xanthia was not—and therein lay all the difference. She marveled that Nash had not noticed it. Perhaps he had. Perhaps that was why he had begun to fear the snap of a parson’s mousetrap.

Kieran was looking at her strangely.

Xanthia took up her fork and forced a bemused expression. “Lord Dark-and-Dangerous,” she murmured. “Why do you call him that?”

Kieran forked up another bite of chicken. “I find a malevolent sort of air about the man,” he said after thoughtfully chewing it. “He isn’t English, either. Or perhaps I should say English is not his first language. Did you notice?”

Xanthia’s eyes widened. “You may be right,” she answered. “I have rubbed elbows with sailors so long, I pay scant heed to a faint accent.”

Kieran looked introspective. “Well, wherever he is from, I am not sure I care for his effrontery,” he remarked. “I believe I shall ask Sharpe about the man’s character.”

“Oh, pray do not.” Xanthia frowned at her brother. “Indeed, I forbid it.”

“You forbid it?” Kieran shot a dark look across the table, then relented. “Well, suit yourself, Zee. It’s your wedding, not mine.”

“It isn’t anyone’s wedding,” she insisted.

“And you did not answer my question about Gareth, my dear,” he went on. “I hope I need not remind you that Gareth is still our dear friend. Indeed, he is all but family to us both.”

“What are you trying to say, Kieran?” she demanded.

“Just do not hurt him, Zee, any more than is absolutely necessary,” said her brother quietly. “If you do not mean to have him, then tell him plainly.”

Xanthia dropped her fork. “I have told him plainly,” she said. “I have been telling him for about half a decade now, Kieran. Kindly hush about Gareth. I have something far more important to discuss.”

“Have at it, my dear,” said her brother, his tone instantly lightening. “But for God’s sake, do not speak to me of Neville Shipping, or of what you and Gareth have been about all day. I should rather hear an alphabetical recitation of the Westminster tax rolls.”

Xanthia shot him a chiding look. “I wish to speak to you of Pamela,” she said. “And do listen, Kieran, if you please. It is important.”

Now that she was over the shock of seeing Nash again, all of Xanthia’s fear and excitement over Pamela’s situation sprang forth anew. But it took her all of half an hour to explain Pamela’s predicament, and enlist her brother’s cooperation. It came grudgingly, for Kieran had not the least interest in English society. Indeed, since letting his mills and plantations go, and moving back to England, he had shown little interest in anything.

They finished the meal in silence. From time to time, Xanthia eyed him across the table. She was worried. Kieran spent most of his days reading and drinking, and his nights prowling about in the stews and hells of Covent Garden. He feigned no interest in life’s higher purposes or finer virtues, and had thus far refused to join even the most humble of clubs or societies. Kieran kept low company, odd hours, and bad women. His occasional trysts with Mrs. Ambrose were almost a relief to her.