Damn it, if he chose to marry her he would lock her up to protect her innocence.
The music ceased; her fingers were in his as the dance was completed. She would have pulled them free but he refused to let go.
She lowered in a curtsy.
Half the room would be laughing behind their smiles as they watched his game play, thinking the poor woman the fool he’d just told her he never was. He did not wish her thought a fool either, though.
As she rose, she smiled.
Her eyes said she liked him, even if she had not said it with her lips.
She’d taken him at his word, and she was judging him by what she saw, not by the history that had woven around him like a web for years… Rogue… Rake… Bastard… Unwanted son… Unwanted entirely…
“My father,” she breathed as her hand slipped from his. He felt the loss like something had been taken from him.
“Remember me as I am.”
She gave him another tentative smile and then her fingers gripped her dress to lift it away from her feet and she turned towards her father.
Drew watched her cross the floor then join her family. Her father leant to her ear and spoke hurriedly. She glanced back. Drew smiled. She smiled in return but it quivered with uncertainty. She knew now. Her father had just told her.
Do not dance with that rogue…
Damn the man, and damn these people. Drew turned away, to return to his friends, to return to his life, but he had ambitions, and now his ambitions leaned heavily towards Miss Mary Marlow, though winning the girl would be a challenge, there was no denying that.
“Drew, come to my room tonight…” for God’s sake, he had just bathed in innocence and now he was dirty again. He’d lied when he’d said he was unwanted entirely, one element of society welcomed him willingly. Women of his mother’s ilk.
Her removed Lady Worton’s hand from the front of his trousers, pressing his thumb into her palm so she would yield her grip on his crotch. “I am afraid I am not inclined, Bets. Find another toy tonight.”
He did not wait to hear the woman’s reply. He was so damned bored of his life. He’d fallen into it, never chosen it. Been damned well born into, like a whore into a brothel, and for years he’d enjoyed the sex, and the money and gifts the women gave him, but there had come a point he wished to be able to do as he chose – be free to live as he chose – and the only way to achieve it was to marry money.
“Drew!” Another of his friends, Peter, lifted a hand. Drew did have some people he appreciated.
“Peter. You are late. Where have you been?”
“I have been…” As Drew listened to his friend, he turned to face the room.
Miss Marlow was not dancing the next, she stood with her father receiving a scalding by all appearances, while her brother was with a woman in a knot of the family who crowded around them.
Drew looked at Peter. “Who is that with Pembroke?” The Pembroke women, including Miss Marlow, were all dark haired, it was one of the strongest characteristics of their beauty; jet black hair and pale skin and then pale blue eyes about onyx pupils, but this woman was blonde.
“Pembroke’s bride. I came in just before them. He’s taken a wife.”
Good Lord. That was a lark. No one would have expected the man to marry for years. He was not like his sister, his heart was made from stone, and he was no more innocent than Drew. They had travelled in the same circles on the grand tour. Pembroke had been one of the women’s toys too. But he’d walked away from it years ago. Yet he’d been tarnished by it even then.
“Why?” Peter gripped Drew’s shoulder.
“Oh for no reason, I simply wondered.”
“I thought you were interested in the sister, you will hardly have a chance there if you pitch for the man’s wife.”
Drew laughed and looked back over, Mary’s father had ceased talking to her but now her mother was speaking to her. Miss Marlow glanced across the room, her eyes seeking Drew out.
An odd sensation leapt in his chest. He would have said it was his heart, but like Pembroke, he did not really have one. That had been kicked far too many times in his life. Her mother said something else and Miss Marlow looked away.
Drew looked at Pembroke again. Drew liked Miss Marlow. She fulfilled all that he was seeking. Yet Pembroke would never let Drew near his little sister. That thought was a punch in the gut. Another rejection, and a rejection from a man who could have no moral standing over Drew.
It was bloody tempting to pitch for Pembroke’s wife, solely to kick the man back.
If Pembroke had earned himself a wife and a second chance, than why could he not offer Drew the same?
“Stop drooling over the fair Miss Marlow, come and play cards.”
“I ought not, I ought to dance with every woman with a dowry if I am to find one fool enough to take me.”
“There is no hurry for you to choose a woman. If you need funds I’ll pay. Come and play. I am need of your company; Mark and Harry are already playing so I need another man I trust for my pair.”
“Very well.”
Drew played a few hands of cards at the tables with his friends for an hour; they did not normally attend such affairs, but Derwent’s wife was in Drew’s mother’s set, and so any young man with ill-morals had been encouraged to attend. It would end in an orgy later, but by then he and his friends would be gone. He had never been into those sorts of games.
“I am out.” He’d played for long enough.
If he wished to escape his current life, he must return to the task of looking for a new one.
“Then you must settle what you owe.”
Fortune had played against him. Drew looked at Peter who nodded as a hand moved to his pocket. Drew rose. “Good evening, gentleman.” he said to the others about the table, but then he shared a look with Peter that said I shall see you in a while. His friend smiled.
It was all well and good to have a generous wealthy friend, but how could a man respect himself when he lived off his friend like a leach, or from services rendered to the older women of society. They saw society’s untitled sons as a pack of male whores. The devil take this life. He no longer wished for it.
Of course there were lucky untitled sons, those who had fathers who paid for a commission in the army, or the clergy. Framlington would never have deemed to give Drew that. He had given Drew nothing bar his name, his food, and limited clothing, from Drew’s birth until his fifteenth birthday. Then Drew had learned a way to earn freedom from his false father’s house. Only to tie himself up in a new hell.
He should have saved the money the women gave him and paid for his commission into the army, but he’d been young, and greedy, and he’d celebrated his new wealth playing hard at the tables and buying whatever he wished. Of course then the debt had begun, and the debt had sucked him deeper into the power of his mother’s set of friends; though friends was an ambiguous word. Yet they had paid his duns for years, but never enough to fully clear his debt.
He returned to the ballroom to look for his prize – a young woman with a dowry of reasonable size, one that would clear his debt fully, and finally, and enable him to set up his life as he wished.
His eyes were immediately drawn to Miss Marlow’s dark curls, which bounced against her shoulders as she skipped through the steps of another country dance. He truly liked the girl. She’d become his preference