Chapter 4
Four
A ll Dev had been able to think about in the days leading up to his mother’s ball was Lord Castleton and whether the alluring young earl was safe.
He’d reviewed the attack and their subsequent walk to Bedminster House a dozen times in his mind as he’d returned to his family’s home and put himself to bed.
Part of him believed he should have gone after the attacker to discover the man’s identity and reasons for assaulting someone as gentle and harmless as Castleton, but in the end, he decided he had been right to stay by Castleton’s side.
The man needed a friend. No, he needed a protector.
Something about the situation, about the fear and wariness that had seemed to envelop Castleton and about how he had not once questioned the attack or suggested they call a constable, did not sit right with Dev.
It was as if Castleton already knew why he was being attacked and had deemed it pointless to do anything about it.
He contemplated calling on Castleton in the days before the ball, but his mother kept him far too busy with errands and preparations.
It fell on Dev’s shoulders to find the money that his mother would need to pay for all the things she believed would make her event stand out in the sea of balls and soirees that had packed London’s social calendar.
But still, as he pored over the family accounts and repositioned money so that it could go to the right tradesmen at the right time, his thoughts continually drifted to Castleton.
His new friend had not been happy to arrive home.
He had grown more anxious instead of less as he’d entered his house.
Was the danger that haunted him located within his own home?
That had to be the case. Dev had seen enough of the world to know that not every family was as kind and loving as his own, even though his mother and sisters pestered him constantly to wed and find what they called happiness.
He knew that fathers sometimes abused their children, particularly sons.
Especially if they were as far from the masculine ideal as Castleton was.
Then again, whether Castleton was the male ideal or not entirely depended upon what one was searching for in a male. To Dev’s eyes, he was a unique form of perfection.
Which was likely why the sweet man felt so haunted in his own home.
Dammit, Castleton needed a champion. But every time Dev decided that it should be him, something stepped into his path to block his way.
“My dear, you look entirely too sober for a ball,” his mother commented, stepping up to his side as he made one last turn around the large ballroom at Russell House.
Dev grunted, reaching out to brush a rose that had just burst into bloom that stood out from one of the many arrangements his mother had had placed around the room. “My thoughts are elsewhere,” he told her plainly. It was not a lie .
His mother hummed and took his arm. “I can see that, my darling.” She tilted her head and stared at him, her eyes narrowed slightly.
Dev smiled weakly. His mother’s squint was not so much a sign that she was attempting to see through the layers of his character but rather an indication that she needed her spectacles.
She wore them when only the family was at home, but she would have rather gone naked in public than wear them when anyone else might see her.
“I know this sort of wistfulness,” she said once she’d studied him. “I have seen it before. You have been disappointed in love.”
Dev laughed, though an uneasy feeling sent prickles down his back. “I can assure you I have not, Mama,” he said.
“I do not believe you,” his mother said, drawing him away from the flowers at the edge of the room and toward the ballroom entrance, where guests were beginning to arrive. “I have heard whispers that you parted with a certain Mrs. Elmswood recently.”
Dev’s face heated. His mother should not have known so much nor been so accepting of his dalliances.
But then, their family had always been extraordinarily open and progressive in their thinking.
Aside from that, he’d hardly given Marianne a thought in the week since they’d parted ways.
It was damnably callous of him. He should have mourned the end of that attachment for at least some time.
But his thoughts had been too full of Castleton to leave much room at all for Marianne.
“It is nothing of that sort at all, Mama,” Dev replied, uncertain whether he was lying or not. “I was simply contemplating the extravagance of the expense of tonight’s ball.”
His mother made a feigned sound of offense and smacked Dev’s arm playfully.
“You know better than to question your mother’s tastes,” she said.
Her smile grew as they neared the door and as she went on with, “Besides, you must be aware that the hidden purpose of tonight’s festivities is to find you a wife at last.”
Dev huffed. “That purpose is not hidden at all,” he said. “I suppose you will throw every eligible young lady who passes through these doors at my head tonight?”
His mother had enough good humor to laugh. “You know I only wish for you to be as happy as your brothers, my dear,” she said.
“I am very happy,” Dev insisted. “And my brothers can mind their own business.”
“Deveraux,” his mother scolded him, shaking her head. “You are not growing younger, you know.”
“Mother, you wound me,” Dev said dramatically, then sobered enough to greet the Earl of Moreland as he and his red-headed friend entered the ball.
He knew from certain circles that the two men were together, but he greeted them as he would any other guest, assisting them subtly in maintaining their facade of respectability for the world.
Several other guests arrived in quick succession, but as soon as he was able to take a moment to step away from the receiving line he whispered to his mother, “I do not need nor do I particularly want a wife, but you have my leave to try your best to bait me with one.”
His mother glanced over her shoulder at him with a devious laugh. “I will see you married yet, my darling,” she told him, as if throwing down the gauntlet.
Dev threw propriety to the wind and inched forward to kiss his mother’s cheek, scandalizing the grey-haired noblewoman who had only just stepped up to greet her, then marched away, chuckling to himself over his audacity.
Knowing his mother, she would indeed attempt to match him with at least half a dozen young ladies that night.
His feet already ached with the knowledge that he would likely be forced to dance until he wore holes in his shoes.
He sought a moment’s refuge from the coming storm by approaching his brother James, who had arrived from the family’s country estate in Wiltshire just the night before, despite his wife having given birth just two months prior.
“You look as though you are being hunted already,” James greeted him with a laugh.
Dev smirked and turned to stand by his brother’s side, gazing out at the filling ballroom. He and James had always been close and seen eye-to-eye. “I have issued Mother the challenge of pushing as many husband-hunting ladies at me as she can. I am determined to resist every one of them.”
James laughed in a similar manner to their mother. “Still resisting her schemes, I see?”
“I have no reason to wed,” Dev said with a shrug. “You and Julian have already provided the family with more than enough options for heirs. My only responsibility in life now is to keep the family coffers full.”
“With no thought of your own happiness?” James teased him. “I can assure you, Dev, that once you find the right woman, marriage will improve your life immeasurably.”
“And you have found the right woman?” Dev asked.
“Undeniably,” James replied, sighing like he was still a groom on his wedding night, even though he and Amelia had been married more than five years.
“There you have it,” Dev said with a nod. “You and Amelia are happy and Julian and Mary are happy. I dare say that our sister Olivia is happy with that clod she married last year as well.”
“Harrold is a perfectly charming man,” James said, grinning .
“The three of you have used up all the marital bliss in the family. There is none left for me,” Dev insisted. “If I should attempt to choose a bride, I would be grievously disappointed.”
“Marriage is not a game of dice or cards,” James laughed. “You do not wear out your odds with each happy marriage in your family.”
“I’ve no wish to marry,” Dev said with a shrug, and before the subject could be dragged out further, he said, “I have another question, if you might know the answer.”
“I am all ears,” James said with a jovial smile.
Dev grew suddenly serious. “Lord Castleton,” he said. “What do you know of the man’s situation?”
James blinked at him, seemingly startled by the change of subject. “I am not likely to know more than you know, being in the country with Amelia and the children as I’ve been. He is the eldest son of the Duke of Bedminster, is he not?”
“He is,” Dev confirmed.
James grunted. “Bedminster is a nasty one, or so I have been told.”
Dev’s heart beat harder, mostly with sympathy and protectiveness for Castleton. “I believe he is.”
“One of the footmen at Northleach used to work for him,” James went on. “Said he has a right temper and used to beat the staff when they did not perform to his exacting standards.”
Dev rippled with tension as if the blackguard stood in front of him and had slapped his face. He was willing to wager that the bastard beat his own son as well.
“He’s a mannish man, is he not?” he asked. When James turned to look questioningly at him, he said, “He upholds a rough version of masculinity and despises anything else.”
Understanding dawned in James’s eyes. “You worry that because Castleton has always been reputed to be a bit of a fop that he might be the object of his father’s violence.”
“Precisely,” Dev said.
“Are you acquainted with Castleton?” James asked.