His brother now raised his gaze heavenwards. ‘What have I done to annoy you this time? Overspent at my tailor’s? Gambled at the cards a little too heavily?’
‘If only it was your usual irresponsible behaviour then I should not have needed to speak with you at all, but merely dealt with the matter as I always do,’ Darian drawled in a bored voice. ‘I am sure we are both well aware of why it is I wished to speak with you, Anthony,’ he added softly.
‘Not the slightest idea.’ The fact that Anthony shifted uncomfortably, his gaze now avoiding meeting Darian’s as a slight flush coloured his cheeks, instantly gave lie to the claim.
Darian gave a humourless smile. ‘Do not force me to mention the lady by name.’
Anthony narrowed eyes as emerald green as Darian’s own, the two of them very alike in colouring and looks, and so obviously brothers, in spite of the eight years’ difference in their ages; Darian aged two and thirty to his brother’s four and twenty. ‘If you are referring to the actress with whom I had a liaison last month, then I do not even recall her name—’
‘I am not.’
Anthony gave an exaggerated stretch of his shoulders. ‘Then give me a clue, brother, because I have absolutely no idea what—or possibly who?—you might be referring to.’
Darian’s mouth firmed at his brother’s determination not to make this an easy conversation. For either of them. ‘It has been brought to my attention that you have been seen in the company of a certain lady, more often than is socially acceptable.’
Anthony stilled. ‘Indeed?’
Darian nodded. ‘And while it is perfectly acceptable for you to discreetly indulge in a gentleman’s diversions, this particular lady could never be considered as being in the least discreet. Indeed, she is—’
‘Have a care, Darian,’ Anthony warned softly.
‘Her associations, past and present, mean she is not a woman with whom it is acceptable for a gentleman of your standing to indulge in these diversions,’ Darian maintained determinedly. ‘You—’ He broke off as Anthony sprang lightly to his feet, hands clenched into fists at his sides as he glared down at Darian. ‘I have not finished—’
‘In regard to this particular lady, I assure you that you have indeed finished,’ Anthony said fiercely. ‘And might I say that you have a damned nerve, daring to lecture me about my behaviour, when you have only just returned from spending almost two weeks in the company of whatever doxy it was who had so taken your fancy you might have disappeared off the edge of the earth! Or perhaps it is that you consider a duke is allowed to live by different standards than us mere mortals?’
Darian lowered heavy lids as he flicked an imaginary speck of lint from the sleeve of his jacket, at the same time avoiding meeting his brother’s accusing gaze.
Not because he had just spent almost two weeks with his latest doxy. ‘Latest doxy’? Darian could not even remember the last time he had spent any length of time in a woman’s company, let alone her bed.
No, the reason for his avoidance of Anthony’s probing gaze was because he had not been in a woman’s company at all, but had spent almost two weeks across the sea in France, acting secretly as an agent for the Crown.
Almost two weeks when he and his good friend Zachary Black, the Duke of Hawksmere, had roamed the French countryside, and then Paris itself, as they endeavoured to gauge how the French people themselves felt about Napoleon’s return, the emperor having recently escaped from Elba and currently on his way to the French capital.
Not even Darian’s own brother was aware of the work he had undertaken for the Crown these past five years. Anthony certainly had no idea that Darian had suffered a bullet wound to the shoulder just days ago, a souvenir of this last foray into France. And that he was suffering with the pain and discomfort of that wound even now.
Something that had not improved his temper in the slightest. ‘Perhaps you would care to lower your voice?’
‘Why should I, when there is no one else here to hear us?’ Anthony challenged as he looked about the otherwise empty room.
Darian sighed. ‘I am well aware that this lady has certain attributes that you—most gentlemen!—might find diverting. But she is not a discreet woman. Far from it, if gossip is to be believed. People in society are starting to comment upon your marked attentions to her.’
‘Then let them,’ Anthony dismissed with bravado.
He sighed. ‘It simply will not do, Anthony.’
‘Says who? You?’ his brother challenged, aggressive once again. ‘I am almost five and twenty, Darian, not five. Nor,’ he added darkly, ‘do I appreciate your interference in this matter.’
‘Even when I have your best interests at heart?’
‘Not when I am in love with the lady, no.’
Darian held on to his temper with difficulty, having had no idea that his brother’s affections had become engaged to such a degree. A physical diversion, if discreetly handled, was acceptable; a love affair most certainly was not. ‘I am sure the lady has certain charms and experience, which you obviously find attractive. But it would be a mistake on your part to confuse lust with love.’
‘How dare you?’ Anthony challenged fiercely, his face having become a mottled and angry red. ‘My intentions towards the lady are completely honourable!’
Then it was worse even than Darian had feared. ‘By all means continue to bed her then, Anthony, if that is your wish. All I am asking is that you at least try to make less of the association when the two of you are in public.’
‘Continue to—’ Anthony looked as if he might now explode with the depth of his fury. ‘I have not laid so much as an indelicate finger upon the lady. Nor do I intend to do so until after I have made her my wife.’
Now it was Darian’s turn to stand up, his shock at this announcement too great to be contained. ‘You cannot even think of making such a woman your wife!’
‘Such a woman? You damned hypocritical prig!’ Anthony glared at him, eyes glittering darkly. ‘You return from who knows where, after spending days, almost two weeks, in some woman’s bed, and you have the nerve to tell me how I might conduct my own life. Whom I may or may not marry! Well, I shall have none of it, Darian,’ he dismissed heatedly. ‘In just a few more weeks I shall have control of my own life and my own fortune, and when I do I shall marry whom, and when, I damn well please.’
Darian gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘This particular woman is—’
‘A darling. An angel.’ His brother’s voice rose angrily. ‘And it is as well you have chosen not to so much as say her name, because your conversation today shows you are not fit to do so.’
Darian winced. From all that he had heard of the lady, she was neither a darling nor an angel. Far from it.
Nor did he have any intentions of allowing his brother to marry such a woman.
And if Anthony could not be made to see sense, then the lady must...
Two days later—the ballroom of Carlisle House, London
‘Would you care to repeat your remark, Wolfingham, for I fear the music and loud chatter must have prevented me from hearing you correctly the first time?’
Darian did not need to look down, into the face of the woman with whom he was dancing, to know Mariah Beecham, widowed Countess of Carlisle, had heard him correctly the first time; her displeasure was more than obvious, in both the frosty tone of her voice and the stiffness of her elegantly clad body.
‘I