Chapter 5
Chapter Five
WHERE A ROOKERY BOY PRESENTS HIS CASE
He should have stayed away.
He’d tried to stay away, Nigel reminded himself as he stared across the Duke of Markham’s packed ballroom.
Arabella was doing her best to ignore him, as he was doing his best to ignore her.
Although she’d flashed a mischievous smile the two times she’d sailed past in some nob’s arms. Nigel wasn’t gifted at the waltz as he’d not learned how to do it until late in the game, so he wasn’t going to pose a challenge of any sort in this arena.
He was merely going to make an appearance to keep his mother happy, get slightly foxed, then spend a restless evening in his bedchamber at the Lair.
Restless, because that damned kiss was keeping him up nights.
Exactly, and he meant exactly , as he’d told Arabella it would. Not since he was mired in adolescent sensual angst had he pleasured himself this much in one week. The skin on his left hand and his shaft was going to be raw if he kept it up.
In desperation, he’d even tried cornering Lucinda Somersby in a parlor at a demimonde masquerade ball he knew Arabella wouldn’t be attending.
The effort had gone over like a lead brick, the lady in question, one who’d been hounding him for months and was receptive, left with the impression that Nigel Streeter’s reputation was undeserved.
The embrace had been a dismal, passionless fiasco.
Nigel grabbed a champagne flute from a passing footman and tossed back the contents. He’d made a mistake that was costing him. Maybe Arabella hadn’t recognized the risk—but he had. His lips had tingled before he’d touched them to hers.
That spelled epic trouble, didn’t it?
“Another mind-numbing holiday celebration,” his brother, Worth, said as he stepped in beside him.
He’d grown to look so much like their father that it shocked Nigel every time he saw him.
His hair was the exact inky black Tobias’s had once been.
“One every day until New Year’s. I’d be much happier going to the Lair when you decide to flee this social tragedy. ”
Nigel sipped from the glass Worth handed him. “Nice try, little man.”
“I don’t know what Mother has against my coming around more often.”
Nigel snorted softly, thinking of the fascinating group of females who’d stopped by last night, then left with half his clientele for rooms they had down the lane. Worth knew of such things, of course, but it wasn’t the time yet for him to witness them. “I do.”
“Someday, though, you’re going to let me work there a little.” He tapped his temple. “I have a mind for numbers.”
Nigel glanced at his brother, love an ever-present tide rippling through him. He would protect his family until his dying breath. And part of that vow meant doing things that would make them happy—and make him worry. “Someday, I will. That’s a promise.”
Worth smiled, pleased. He might have looked like a replica of Tobias Streeter, once the most dangerous bounder in England, but he had their mother’s joyful demeanor in every sense.
“Rumor is, that knave is chasing after Arabella.” Worth pointed his flute at the Marquess of Derring’s progeny holding court by the sweets table.
Ambrose’s hawkish gaze was fixed on her and holding, bringing a wave to heat to the back of Nigel’s neck.
She’d yet to dance with the miscreant, but it was likely coming.
He decided then and there to leave before that occurred .
“Couldn’t even keep his seat at Eton. Rode like a chit, truth be told,” Nigel murmured. “Bloody pathetic to watch.”
Worth grunted. “Not surprising. You should see him in the billiards parlor. Sent his cue through the window at Winthrop’s ball last spring. A woeful attempt at play.”
“Xander will never let this happen. Ambrose needs a fat dowry, and he can go elsewhere to secure it.”
“Not unless Arabella wants him. If she does, Xander will move heaven and earth, even for that cheerless creature. Because he believes in love, like the rest of the Cluster. The poor fools.” Worth sighed. “I do hope we’re not going to get caught in that legacy.”
Nigel scowled, their incredible kiss roaring through his mind. “She doesn’t want that halfwit. Did you not hear my story about his riding capabilities?”
Worth tilted his head, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “Maybe that adoring stuff skipped a generation. We don’t seem to be mired in this affection-above-all business, the younger set, not a one of us.”
Nigel paused, searching his mind. He’d never been in love, but he believed in love. How could he not with the examples he’d been given, true representations placed before him?
“What’s that scuffle going on over there? By the ratafia bowl.”
Nigel turned to look, wedging his flute in the potted palm at his side.
Lord Reading’s wife was rumored to have taken a lover in the Marquess of Perth-Alton.
The viscount and the marquess were chest-to-chest, fists clenched.
Nigel noted what looked to be the butt of a pistol protruding from Perth-Alton’s coat pocket.
And they were standing right next to Arabella.
Nigel turned to his brother. “When I create a diversion, find Markham and tell him Perth-Alton has a pistol and whisky could pull the trigger. I know the menacing stance a man gets before he makes an enormous error in judgment.” He shook Worth when his brother seemed frozen.
“Go. Now . I’ll get Arabella. Tell the family she’s with me. ”
As Worth circled the perimeter of the room, Nigel braced his shoulder against the palm, which was housed in a ceramic urn the size of a wine cask.
The piece was heavy as hell, but with a good grunt and a shove, it tipped and hit the floor with a tremendous boom.
Dancers scattered as dirt exploded, the plant sliding in a misshapen lump to the middle of the floor.
Conversation halted and erupted again, a cacophony of voices filling the space.
Someone along the wallflower wall fainted, and the Countess of Nilling spilled ratafia down her bodice, adding mayhem to the proceedings.
However, Nigel had waited too long.
Perth-Alton was shoving Reading, and the viscount’s entourage stepped in. Someone in the group threw a punch, then all hell broke loose. Men who’d not been involved and shouldn’t be, dove into the melee until it swelled past the confines of the dancefloor, spilling out onto the terrace.
Nigel made it to Arabella before she’d had a chance to safely clear the area. He grasped her elbow and marshaled her against his side. “Come with me.”
She glanced over her shoulder as he led her away, skirting dazed couples and clumps of dirt, spilled champagne and chaos. “But the fun is just beginning. This is shaping up to be the ball of the Season!”
Nigel guided her down a darkened corridor and out the kitchen garden’s door.
He always had his coach parked in the half drive on the western edge of Markham’s terrace for speedy exits.
“Take it from someone who knows, you don’t want to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This has all the markings of the wrong time. ”
“I never liked Perth-Alton, anyway. I hope he gets socked right in the teeth! He tried to kiss me during a firework display at Vauxhall last year, when I repeatedly told him ‘Thank you, but no.’ His breath smelled like onions and brandy.”
“Remind me to discuss that with him when I next see him,” Nigel muttered, adding it to his running list. “Or, better yet, I’ll have your father talk to him. That’ll be grand to watch.”
Arabella skipped to catch up to him. “Oh, please, no. He’s getting too old for brawls with anyone except family. The Leighton Cluster have finally begun to throw softer swings.”
Realizing he was sprinting to escape the bedlam, Nigel slowed his stride, but he didn’t release her.
It was a moment before he grasped that she’d taken his hand, and he’d accepted the invitation, linking his long fingers with her slim ones.
Snow was falling, the picturesque kind that made you yearn for winter…
before you found yourself praying for spring.
He wanted to deny the romance of spiriting the woman away who’d been on his mind every second for the last seven days—away in the mist while a skirmish raged behind them—but he could not.
He halted by his carriage and watched, mesmerized, as snowflakes attached themselves to her eyelashes.
They were leagues darker than her hair, highlighting insanely beautiful eyes.
Feeling as if he should explain since he was once again with her and without a chaperone, he gestured to the house.
“I’m not like them, even if I was born in the gutter.
They take what they want despite any argument against the confiscation.
I don’t touch women without their agreement.
I’ve never once taken the word ‘no’ as meaning anything but ‘no.’ Force doesn’t light my fuse, as it were. ”
Arabella glanced at their gloved hands, the heat from her skin seeping through kid leather and warming his.
He’d never been more comfortable in frigid weather in his life.
“You think too much about your pedigree rather than the journey you’ve taken to become the man you are.
A successful entrepreneur. Part of a loving, large, and often raucous family.
Weren’t you awarded a First Class degree at Cambridge?
How many of the dimwits in that ballroom can say the same? ”