Society's Most Scandalous Viscount (7 page)

Chapter Six

Angelica woke the next morning, swiftly left bed, and padded to the washstand to splash cold water on her face. It was a dream, most certainly. She hadn't kissed a devastatingly handsome man, composed of solid muscle and irresistible charm. She hadn't allowed his arms to wrap around her nor had she nestled closer to his very
hard
body. She gasped and sputtered, water trickling into her mouth to bring with it a rush of similar circumstance, the rain pebbling her face last night, her heartbeat thrumming an erratic rhythm in kind to her fists against his back as he carried her across the beach. Surely, it was a dream. Otherwise the truth that she'd allowed a stranger to fondle her, kiss her, to rub his tongue against her—

She grabbed the towel from the stand and pressed it to her face with fierce pressure, biting into the linen as if to prove she was awake, alive, and in clear reason. She dropped the cloth soon after, discarding it to the floor without a care, and shot her chin upward to view her reflection in the oval cheval glass hanging on the wall.

She looked much as she always did. She leaned the slightest bit closer. Nothing appeared amiss, aside from faint violet shadows under her eyes, evidence of lack of sleep and reckless midnight jaunts. She bent to retrieve the towel, ordering the room as she would order her thoughts, and her gaze fell to her day gown crumpled in a heap near the corner of the bed. Lifting the garment by the shoulders, she held it at arm's length, her scrutiny honed to the collar where only one crimson ribbon dangled, the other sliced clean.

A disquieting flutter echoed within her stomach. She'd known all along last night had been real, but here was proof she couldn't deny, confirmation of her wanton adventure. After hanging the gown on a wall hook, she perched on the corner of the mattress, her arm wrapped around the thick bedpost as if it were a supportive friend. Her temple rested against the wood. She closed her eyes and summoned the memory that had carried her into sleep the night before.

She had promised herself an adventure and she'd found one on the beach. The pirate's kiss had been nothing she'd expected and something she'd never forget, and it lived within her still. Oh, she'd fled the groundskeeper's cottage thinking to abandon the consuming heat of passion found in the pirate's arms, but running had not extinguished the incredible pleasure and overflow of emotion. The kiss ruined her for any future her father had planned, but that was the point wasn't it? To capture a moment and cherish a memory. She hadn't intended to permit the tall stranger such intimacy, but wrapped tight in an unexplainable nuance of circumstance, she'd allowed it and didn't regret it now.

With a long sigh, she smiled and rose to ready for the day. What time was it anyway? Sunlight danced through the narrow gap of the drapery. The single window allowed an abundance of light only to have the curtains confine and narrow the offering. An apt example of before and after, a glaring reminder that soon her life would change.

She glanced to the small clock on her three-drawer chest and noted it was almost noon. Good heavens, she'd become a slugabed. It didn't matter she'd returned home in the wee hours, hurrying down the length of beach and up the short trail to her grandmother's cottage. She'd only stumbled twice in the dark as she brought herself home, safe if one could consider her conflicted heart and mind of that category.

Thank God no one had discovered her late-night strolls. Grandmother would never excuse blatant careless behavior, no matter that they shared the same impish spirit. This crossed the line. Adventurous or not, she'd be concerned for her granddaughter's safety, and how could Angelica argue with sound reasoning? Her father? Well that didn't bear exploring. He'd have her shipped to a convent before she could gather her slippers and bonnet.
Banishment.
The word brought with it a rush of definition.

Dressed and prepared to fabricate an excuse for sleeping late, Angelica left her bedchamber and went downstairs to find the cottage empty. The only activity was the dust motes afloat in a ray of light through the kitchen window—neither Grandmother nor Nan inside.

She selected a plum from the wooden bowl on the table and bit into the fruit before moving to the window to peer into the backyard. Perhaps Grandmother and Nan worked with their plants. The day seemed fine for gardening tasks. She chewed and swallowed thoughtfully as she considered the explanation.

With surprise she spied her father walking the length of the yard aside her grandmother. For the second time this morning her breath snagged; albeit now there was no satisfying memory to accompany this disruption.

Lord Egan Curtis, Earl of Morton, stood nearly six feet tall, his narrow frame ramrod straight, his elongated stature in parallel to the thin black walking stick he used at all times. He didn't need the stick for support as much as for effect. Angelica couldn't remember a time when he hadn't carried it, the threat of being whacked with it across her bottom for some disobedience in character sufficient to instigate her observance of its existence at all times.

As a child she'd imagined its demise in a variety of vivid scenarios: secretly placing it in the hearth to burn, dropping it down the well, or burying it behind the hillock of walnut trees at the north edge of the property. These fantasies jockeyed for popularity among her thoughts. Didn't he know how much it stung to be struck across the shins? Surely if he did, he would refrain.

As an adult she realized her fantasies were futile. Father likely had a plenitude of sticks at the ready. Were a tragedy to befall one he'd only have to reach into the closet for another. Once she'd grown to a mature age he'd refrained from the threat of punishment, confident he'd rid his daughters of all rebellion, and instead, he'd adopted the habit of punctuating sentences with a severe stab to the floorboards in equal proclivity. At times he emphasized his point with a sharp swing. The stick had become another appendage, a part of his presence as much as his short clipped beard—which he wore in spite of the fashion to be clean-shaven—and perspicacious surveillance. In all her memories, she'd never suffered overlong from that walking stick, but the threat of the damage it could inflict were she to disobey kept her tied to a narrow path of sensible decision, which enhanced the smallest freedom whenever she visited Grandmother in Brighton.

Now mother and son stood in deep conversation and Angelica wondered of the exchange, unable to decipher their expressions from the distance. Should she move to the door? Crack it open and attempt to hear crumbs of conversation? The risk of detection rooted her to the floorboards, a shadow of disappointment stifling her mood. She exhaled thoroughly and placed the plum on the counter, no longer interested in the fruit.

She had hoped to finish the week in Brighton before her return to London. It was somewhat of an agreement, never solidified as her father freely changed his mind and expected her to accept his contrariness without objection, but implied nonetheless. After the tumultuous confrontations in their past, Angelica had wisely approached her father with an attitude of compliance, though a slice of injustice urged she leave through the front door and not look back. She discarded the foolish notion as soon as it formed. There was much to weigh in concern of her future and she wasn't a coward. Failure was not an option.

Returning her eyes to the garden, Angelica watched her father command the conversation, the words overflowing as he jabbed at the ground with punctilious gesticulation. A nearby sparrow took wing to avoid being skewered. Father pivoted and advanced a few steps and Grandmother followed. The conversation had seemingly progressed to a more heated level if their expressions were any indication. Grandmother didn't approve of Father's dedicated zeal for religion and Angelica wondered if Father had shared his plan and thus prompted the switch in congenial discussion to vehement diatribe. Her father screwed his face into a scowl of condemnation she'd come to know well. His steps stalled a second time. How could he behave so to his mother?

Angelica loved her grandmother above all else. Her affection was the only maternal influence she'd experienced. Her grandmother's nature was in contrast to her father's, a strict pious man who raised his daughters with reserved obedience.

The fleeting image of Helen flittered to mind and Angelica allowed the forbidden memory to settle in her heart with a hollow ache. Would she ever see her sister again? Why must everything be so complicated? Perhaps her father preferred it this way. One daughter proved easier to handle than two, especially when every proposition was met with opposition.

With renewed anger tipping the scale, Angelica strode through the door and out into the sunlight. She'd face her father and see why he'd arrived on short notice. She owed that much to Helen and there was no other way for her to plan her future or escape if she didn't assemble as much information as possible. She wouldn't repeat Helen's mistake. The realization pricked like a thorn on the stem of a rose. Angelica would design a better plan, conspire smarter, otherwise how else would she ever honor her sister's memory?

Kellaway secured Nyx in his stall and eyed the gilt carriage parked against the far wall. A beat of anger drummed to life, for he knew the carriage as his mother's. The conveyance, one of elegant lines and crafted design, was expensive and refined, in juxtaposition to his mother's true character. The persistent serration of conflict that accompanied thoughts of a new altercation with her gained strength. He was a good son, at least by most measures. He wished to honor his mother, and protect her, but the foolish societal mayhem she perpetuated in response to his father's indiscretions rubbed him raw. Kell preferred to keep his private life just that, under lock and key where no one could turn a critical eye.

In contrast, his parents had created a lifestyle that resembled a poorly acted theatrical drama. Their petty squabbles and humbling adulterous escapades added fuel to a fire that needed to burn out. Worse, his mother played Kellaway to her advantage, asking him to resolve differences and intercede, sometimes to appeal to his father, which instigated further acts of inconsequential revenge. The entirety damaged Kell's reputation as much as his sire's. Had his grandfather not interfered and taken Kell's father to task, who knew to what length his parents would have carried their immature squabbling?

Kell shook his head in despair. He'd come to Brighton to escape the familial mess that had plagued him since his early twenties. A decade of endurance seemed penance enough.

He fetched a brush from the tack room, lit a lantern, and began Nyx's grooming ritual. He enjoyed tending the Arabian in the same fashion he'd cared for her during their return travels to England. No stable hand would ever attend Nyx as Kell did. And in truth, more evenings than not, the organized practice of grooming soothed Kell's mood in equal measure, the scent of leather, fresh hay, and barley a predictable comfort. Theirs was a silent understanding—one of loyalty and respect.

He worked the brush in strong circular movements across the horse's flank, his mind as busy as the tool. His mother would want a favor. And she would ask for it prettily, veiled in panoply of inventive promises, and he would comply in an objectionable tendency that caused him to drink in excess after she'd departed. The reality of the exchange darkened his soul. He was a grown man inclined to react when his mother pulled the leading strings. Alas, the heated exchange with his father and their last scene brought it all to the square in public display. Perhaps that explained his mother's unannounced arrival and, further, this week of unexpected visitors.

The horse nickered as if to indicate Kell had come full circle in his thinking. True enough the singular incident drove him to Brighton in the first place.

When Kell was younger he'd wished, hoped,
prayed
for parents who took the slightest interest in his affairs. Parents who would attend his graduation, acknowledge his accomplishments—
he'd scored double firsts at Oxford in a bid for their approval
—but that was not to be. He'd learned independence and self-sufficiency at the ripe age of twelve, experienced a whore's pleasure at thirteen after winning an unseemly wager in the back room of a St. Giles gaming hell. He'd frequented every place a lofty aristocrat shouldn't and hardened his heart along the way, somehow maintaining a barely respectable presence in society while simultaneously seeking pleasure and pursuing challenges whenever the opportunity presented itself.

The elite viewed him as privileged, the heir to a fortune, a title, and moniker that would serve him through life, but the opposite proved true. Any monies set aside for his future gathered dust in the bank. Kell made his way by intelligent wager and shrewd investment, amassing his fortune by ingenuity and design, beholden to none. And his title? His familial ties to the Duke of Acholl? Perhaps it had aided his path at times, but never let it be said Kellaway depended on his relations. He'd learned all too quickly he was of no true importance aside from his legitimacy. With a caustic scoff, he tossed the brush aside and discarded the bitter memory.

“I can't fathom what she'll ask of me now, though only a fool would trust the verity of her request.” He grasped Nyx by the bridle and lowered the Arabian's head before he retrieved the crimson ribbon from his pocket and double knotted the length in the horse's mane. Releasing the leather strap he rubbed a palm over Nyx's muzzle, leaning in to rest his head against the horse's neck. He'd gather strength from the animal. He'd draw endurance.

But instead of his mind combating the numerous conflicts his mother might impose once he entered the house, Kell's thoughts returned to the kiss he'd shared in the cottage and the mysterious beauty who had startled him into unexpected emotion: a depth of reaction for which he had no label. He lost himself in the sensual pleasures of women whenever he needed release, but this seemed different. This was rare and unsettling, and perhaps a shade dangerous to his well-guarded heart.