To Pleasure a Prince (13 page)

“Since you cannot behave as a gentleman and do not seem willing to learn how, I am afraid I shall have to forgo the pleasure of your company.”

He halted. “You’re refusing to hold to your end of the bargain after all.”

“I agreed to a proper courtship. And you clearly do not know what that is.”

“Confound it all, I do know—” He broke off, realizing he had sunk in way over his head. “Fine. Then tell your damned brother to go to perdition. Because if I don’t have your company, he doesn’t get Louisa’s.”

He stormed out, nearly colliding with Miss Tremaine, who was eavesdropping outside the door. He paused just long enough to cast her a dark glance. “Congratulations. You’re rid of me at last.”

Then he fled.

Young charges can be sly in their ways. A good chaperone must anticipate every eventuality.

—Miss Cicely Tremaine,
The Ideal Chaperone

M
arcus threw himself into his carriage and roared at the coachman to go on. A pox on her, a pox on them all. He must have been insane to enter into such a nightmare bargain in the first place. Lessons! The chit wanted to get him lessons in deportment, for God’s sake!

“Marcus, are you all right?” Louisa asked from the seat opposite his.

“I’m fine.” Wonderful, now that he’d banished Lady Lofty from his life.

No more nights spent at his brother’s town house to avoid the long drive back to Castlemaine. No more livery costs for his horses and carriage. No more dressing for the evening just to have a haughty female criticize the cut of his coat.

No more sparring with that razor-tongued witch. No more stimulating exchanges. No more hot, ravening kisses in the dark. No more forbidden tastes of her honey-sweet flesh…

Damn the wench, why did she do this to him?

It didn’t matter; it was over now. So what if she thought he was incapable of behaving himself? That’s what he wanted, wasn’t it?

No, damn it. He wanted to prove that her friends were a pack of wolves who would tear the average gentleman to shreds. That his sister would never be welcomed among them because of their idiotic expectations.

Not
because he couldn’t follow the rules. He could be as much a gentleman as the next fellow if he chose.

That’s what incompetent fellows always protest when they don’t know how to dance or behave properly or say the right things.

Great God, she was driving him mad!

“Marcus?” Louisa said, into the rumbling noise of the carriage. “Did you mean what you said? That Simon and you and I could go riding together?”

Damn. Now he had to deal with Louisa’s expectations. “The situation has changed.”

Even in the grey half-light of street and carriage lamps, he could see his sister’s frown. “How so?”

“Foxmoor will no longer be accompanying you places.”

An alarming paleness spread over her cheeks. “Why not?”

“Because he won’t, that’s all.”

Louisa glared at him. “I take it that you said something horrible to Lady Regina. That’s why she was so cool to you. Oh, Marcus, what did you do?”

He hadn’t told Louisa of his bargain with Regina, but his sister was no fool. She had to know that his association with Regina would necessarily affect hers with Foxmoor. “What makes you think
I
did anything? She’s the one with the lofty standards and the condescension and—”

“She’s perfectly lovely, and you know it.” Louisa settled back against the squabs with an exasperated sigh. “But you just had to go and ruin things with her.”

“I refuse to court a woman who’s always trying to make me into something I’m not.”

“You mean a gentleman?”

Not Louisa, too. Was he ever to escape this female snobbery? “I’m already a gentleman, damn it.”

“You don’t act like one. It’s just as I told Simon—”

“Simon?” Had things already progressed so far that they were on a first-name basis?

She colored. “Yes. He and I have known each other for over a month now.”

He rolled his eyes. “Haven’t you ever wondered why a wealthy duke of such great connections would court the daughter of our rumor-laden mother?”

“As a matter of fact, I have. So I asked him about it. And he told me he’d met our mother as a boy and thought she was a good person.”

“Compared to whom? Jezebel?”

She frowned. “I know Mama treated you harshly sometimes, but she could be kind—”

“How would you know? She was never around. She didn’t care enough about either of us to stay home.”

Louisa flinched, then turned her gaze out the window. Damn. He hadn’t meant to dredge that up and wound her feelings.

But when she returned her gaze to him, her eyes were sharp as a pair of hat pins. “This is not about Mama. I’m in love with Simon—that’s all that matters.”

This night got worse by the moment. “But is he in love with you?”

She set her shoulders. “I believe so, yes.”

“Has he said so?”

“Not yet. But we’ve only begun to court. And now you mean to end it before I can even find out how he feels.”

“He’s not good enough for you, and as your guardian, I must act according to my conscience.”

“You thought he was good enough for me when you were courting Regina.”

He opted for honesty. “Actually, I didn’t even then. But I believed that you would see the truth if I gave him the chance to court you.”

“Which gave
you
the chance to court Regina.” She sniffed. “So now you expect Simon and me to part, simply because you stupidly hurt her feelings.”

“Are you mad? Hurt her feelings, indeed. You saw how coldly she treated me this evening.”

“Because you behaved like an ill-mannered lout. I don’t blame her. If you ever treated me like that, I’d never speak to you again.” She leaned forward to clasp his hand with that earnest expression that always boded trouble. “When you want to, you can be perfectly charming, like when you talk to Lady Iversley. So I don’t understand why now that you have a woman who is interested in you—”

“Lady Regina isn’t interested in me.” He jerked his hand from her grasp. Louisa was supposed to condemn that confounded female, not take her side. “She considers me beneath her touch. If you can’t see that, you’re blind.”

“You’re the one who’s blind. Haven’t you seen her watching you?”

He stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“Regina watches you with those furtive glances a lady uses only for a gentleman she wants.”

Ruthlessly, he ignored the sudden leap in his pulse.
If
Regina wanted him, it was only to satisfy her virginal curiosity with a dangerous male. “She watches me to mark my many lapses in gentlemanly behavior.”

“Oh? Then why does she ask me so many personal questions about you?”

He caught his breath. “Like what?”

“Where you went to school. Why you won’t spend money on clothes.” She arched an eyebrow. “If you’ve always been such a grump.”

That a respectable woman,
any
woman, would ask about him stunned him. Yes, Regina had responded to his kisses, but he’d never guessed she might be interested in him otherwise. The possibility intrigued him. Which made it dangerous. “What did you tell her?”

“You’ll have to ask
her.
I would never relate a private conversation.”

“You just related—” He bit back a curse, fighting the urge to take his sister over his knee for the first time in his life. “Never mind. I don’t care what you gossiping females said behind my back.”

She sighed. “Oh, Marcus, I know you like her. Why not apologize? Do what you must to get her back?”

“I am not apologizing to that harpy!” Not if he could help it. He couldn’t do much about Regina, but he could damned well control his sister. “Regardless of the situation between Regina and me, you are not to see Foxmoor.”

She thrust her chin out mutinously. “No?”

“No,” he said firmly. “And that is my final word on the subject.”

“I see.”

His eyes narrowed. “You will obey me in this.”

“Of course. Whatever you say.”

“No protests?” he said uneasily. “No objections?”

“None.” She cast him a distinctly Regina-like smile, and his blood ran cold.

She’ll resent you even more for your stubbornness,
Regina had told him at Castlemaine,
which will give her justification for deceiving you at every turn.

God help him. Louisa would do it, too. Being out in society had emboldened her. If he stopped going about with her in London, he’d have only the Iversleys to rely on—who were absorbed with their new marriage and their new baby and who weren’t entirely convinced that his concerns about Foxmoor were valid.

Damn, damn, damn.

He could join them in chaperoning Louisa, but that meant going into society and seeing Regina at every party, with sycophants like that confounded Whitmore slobbering at her feet. He’d rather have his fingernails removed with pincers.

Not that he could get himself invited to the parties Louisa would want to attend, anyway. Although his association with Regina had garnered him an invitation or two, those would dry up as soon as she asked her friends to stop inviting him.

Which brought him back to relying on the Iversleys to watch Louisa.

He gritted his teeth. Too bad he couldn’t lock his sister in the dungeon. But Regina was liable to find out and engineer her escape, then give the girl refuge in her own home.
Foxmoor’s
home. Better to have his enemies right under his nose where he could keep an eye on them.

Perhaps it was time to change his tactics. His first plan hadn’t worked the way he’d wanted; Louisa was still on Regina’s side. And if Regina told his sister that she’d thrown him over because he was some drooling idiot who didn’t know “gentlemanly deportment,” Louisa would make his life hell. Or they’d both join forces against him, God forbid.

A “proper” courtship might be more effective. He could keep an eye on Simon and Louisa more easily if he wasn’t always trying to infuriate Regina, and the result would be the same in the end. Because if he behaved like a gentleman and Lady Lofty saw that society condemned him anyway, she would still break with him.

But Louisa wouldn’t be able to blame
him
for it. Once she saw Regina heartlessly spurning him despite his efforts to please, Louisa would surely side with him. Then she’d break with Simon, too, for how could she let him court her after his sister had mistreated Marcus?

“All right, you win,” he said. “I’ll get Lady Regina back.”

“And Simon can still court me?”

Her hopeful expression made him groan. “For the moment.”

With any luck, his new plan would put her squarely on his side. If it didn’t, he just might have to resort to his dungeon after all.

Perhaps he should put Regina in it, instead of his sister. A variation on his dream last night flitted through his mind—Regina locked up in his dungeon, offering to do anything that might please him. Regina kneeling at his feet, her hair tumbled about her shoulders, her siren’s mouth begging him to take her to his bed. Regina naked, without a harp to shield her from his gaze—

“So how do you mean to get her back?” his sister asked.

His fantasy evaporated, leaving him uncomfortably aroused. Setting his hat on his lap, he forced himself to concentrate on her question. “I don’t know.”

“Might I make a suggestion?”

He sighed. “Why not?

“If you want to impress Regina…”

Hours later, Marcus found himself on the threshold of the Blue Swan in the pouring rain, demanding to see his half brother. After leaving Louisa at the Iversleys, he’d gone to Byrne’s house, only to learn from the butler that Byrne never came home before 4:00
A
.
M
. Such was the life of a gaming club owner.

And since this was the first time Marcus had entered the club through the front, the porter gave him trouble.

“But you aren’t a member, sir,” the man said, his upper lip curling in distaste at the sight of Marcus’s unfashionable overcoat and dripping beard. “No one can enter who is not a member or a guest of a member.”

“If you don’t fetch the owner at once, I swear I will—”

“Draker!” his brother exclaimed, coming out into the hall. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Trying to see you,” he snapped.

“By coming through the front door of my club?” Byrne waved the porter aside. “What a novel idea.”

“Very funny.” Marcus stepped inside and stamped his feet to dislodge the mud that had accumulated in his travels about town. “I’m not in the mood for your humor tonight.”

As the porter took Marcus’s soaked coat and hat with a look of disdain, Byrne chuckled, not the least bit perturbed. He led Marcus to his offices. “What’s wrong that would bring you out in this weather?”

“Nothing that eradicating the entire female race wouldn’t cure.”

“Ah. Woman trouble.”

They entered the office, and Byrne closed the door.

“Women are a plague upon the earth.” Marcus headed for the fire to warm his chilled hands.

“You’re just now discovering that?”

Marcus cast him a foul look. “You don’t seem to have trouble with them.”

“Because I keep them in their place. The minute one of them starts trying to make my life a misery, I move on to the next.”

“I don’t have that choice. One of the troublemakers is Louisa.”

“Can’t help you with that, I’m afraid. I have no sisters, thank God. So if you’re here for advice—”

“I’m here because I need a favor.”

Byrne’s eyes burned with curiosity. Though Marcus, Iversley, and Byrne had all sworn to lend each other aid whenever asked, Marcus had never required Byrne’s help before. “What sort of favor?” he asked.

Marcus stared into the fire. “I need a voucher for Almack’s.”

“I already told Iversley that the Lady Patronesses don’t meet until Monday. While I’m sure that Louisa’s application will be approved, I can’t guarantee—”

“It’s not for Louisa.” He gritted his teeth. “I need one for me.”

There was a long moment of shocked silence. Then Byrne began to chuckle. Then laugh. Then howl like a pack of children run amok.

Marcus whirled to face him. “It’s not that funny.”

“Oh yes…it is…” Byrne choked out between guffaws. “The idea of you…in that place…with all those humor-less bitches…”

“Can you get it or not?”

Byrne’s laughter died. “My God, you’re serious.”

“Of course I’m serious. You think I’d come here in the wee hours of the morning just to tweak your nose about something like that? I’ve got better things to do with my time.”

“Like go to Almack’s.” Byrne erupted into laughter again.

Marcus wanted to choke him. “If you
can’t
get me the voucher—”

“Then nobody else can either,” Byrne put in quickly, as Marcus’s dire glance stifled the rest of his fit of humor. “As it is, I’ll have to call in every marker to manage it.”

“Isn’t one of your former mistresses a Lady Patroness?”