Chapter 2
Chapter Two
The next day, Crossvale Court
Lord Brawly possessed three rather large moles on an otherwise unremarkable backside. And he grunted like a pig as he thrust into Lady Chattaway.
Tessa slammed the door shut. “Not again.” She stuttered several steps in one direction then in the other. Where had she been going? Oh yes, inside the room she shared with her employer. The room said employer was currently occupying with her paramour.
She should go outside. No, to the drawing room. No. To… to… heavens, she still needed to change her muddy shoes.
The door swung open, and Lady Chattaway scowled. “You’ve ruined it. Brawly couldn’t last long enough after that interruption to do a thing for me.”
“Oh… I do apologize.”
Lady Chattaway waved her hands like she was swatting away flies. “Don’t do that, girl. Come in. We must talk.”
Tessa peeked in before stepping over the threshold. Thankfully, Lord Brawly was fully dressed if a little wrinkled and red cheeked. The cheeks on his face. Thank heavens she could no longer see the other pair.
“What is it we must discuss?” Tessa asked carefully.
“I swear I will not tell a soul what I saw. In fact, I saw nothing.” Not Lady Chattaway bent over the bed, not Lord Brawly’s bare backside.
Certainly not those three moles. “I saw nothing the other times, too.” She’d certainly seen less the two other times she’d caught them in flagrante delicto.
“Of course you saw nothing. You’re a good girl, after all. That’s why I feel a bit bad for what I’m about to say.”
“Sit,” Brawly said as Lady Chattaway guided her to a nearby chair.
They stared at her as if she were about to die.
“If your news is so distressing,” Tessa said, curling her hands around the chair arms, “you should not say it.”
Brawly barked a laugh. “Amusing chit!”
Lady Chattaway ignored him. “I do not wish to speak of what you just saw. Well, I do. But in a different way. You see, Tessa dear, Brawly has proposed. And I have accepted.”
Oh no. She’d not thought this moment would come so soon. The baron had followed them around for the last six months, another in a long line of Lady Chattaway’s paramours. But he’d lasted longer than the others, and she’d begun to wonder if things might move in this direction.
“It seems rather… quick,” she said.
Lord Brawly held Lady Chattaway’s hand. “We’ve wasted too much time not being together that—”
“We do not wish to waste anymore.”
They were finishing each other’s sentences. Adorable.
“There is more to tell you, though,” Lady Chattaway said as Brawly put an arm around her shoulders. “We’re going abroad again. For a year or two.”
“At least. And…” Brawly cleared his throat. “Alone. Just me and Meredith.”
“Oh.” The chair was opening up beneath her, and she was falling through. Was there an end? What would it be like? Jagged rock or raging sea? Certainly not a nice, cushiony mattress.
Lady Chattaway’s face softened, became almost angelic. “We do not wish to leave you without options, Tessa, my dear. I have spoken with some acquaintances to see if we can procure a position for you elsewhere, but I was thinking, if you are amenable…”
“I’ve a nephew,” Brawly said. “An unmarried nephew.”
“He’s quite handsome,” Lady Chattaway assured her. “Just like his uncle.”
Lord Brawly beamed. “And he’s a man of the cloth. We thought that might, ahem… appease your parents.”
She’d found the bottom of the hole. Jagged rocks before a tumble into a raging sea. Best of both torments.
“Listen carefully, girl,” Lady Chattaway said. “You are attractive, intelligent, and only six and twenty. Do not waste your youth. Mend old bridges. Marry. Have children. Live life.”
“You make it sound as if I’ve not been living it. I paint. I travel with you. I attend balls and parties, make new acquaintances!”
Lady Chattaway patted Tessa’s hand. It had become a claw on the chair arm, and her knuckles were sharp beneath her bloodless skin.
“Think on it,” Brawly said, guiding Lady Chattaway to the door. “We’ll introduce you to Eddie. You’re bound to meet him anyway. He’s here this week. I secured an invitation for him.”
“Your parents will adore him,” Lady Chattaway added before they left Tessa alone.
Tessa couldn’t stand up, so she sat there as clouds moved over the sun outside the window and yellow light in the small chamber dimmed.
Surprising, but when she could stand, she wasn’t trembling.
She walked clear across the chamber to the little room off the side outfitted with a narrow bed where her luggage had been left that morning.
The walls, though, seemed to be closing in on her, and her clothes were pinching in places they normally didn’t.
What had she come here to do?
Oh. Yes. Change her shoes. She’d been in the garden, looking for Remmy, and though it had not rained in London last night. it had rained at Crossvale. She needed her slippers anyway. The household was supposed to congregate for drinks before dinner.
She changed her gown, too, trying not to think about what she’d do next.
She’d always wanted to marry, but Lady Chattaway had taught her the value of independence.
Then again, there was no guarantee a new employer would be like Lady Chattaway.
And if she married, her parents might at least allow her to write to Verity…
No. No. She was not truly considering it. Only being back here… Her old self seemed waiting to be slipped into like a gown she’d forgotten in the back of a wardrobe.
A gown she’d outgrown.
Her years on the Continent with Lady Chattaway had been some of her happiest. But they had been chosen for her by Remmy’s mother, structured as Lady Chattaway liked them.
She’d been offered a turning point, a chance to make her own choice. She would paint her own future from now on.
With brisk steps, she headed for the large drawing room where all the guests were gathering.
She needed to find Remmy and tell him about Brawly and Lady Chattaway.
He’d love the bit about the three moles.
Imagining him laughing made her feel better.
What a delight to see him last night, what a lovely surprise that they had fit back together so perfectly. Just like before.
Mostly. He had changed. When she’d left, he’d been a lanky youth, dear and handsome and boyishly charming, slightly awkward, and awkwardly sincere.
Her Remmy.
Now… all awkwardness leeched away, leaving a steely, confident man who prowled through the world with arrogant ease.
He possessed the kind of shoulders a woman could rely on as well as appreciate.
Boyishness gone, too, from his face, which was now all sharp angles and firm lips.
Eyes bluer than the sky and more mesmerizing than she remembered, a gold earring glinting from beneath the dark silk of his too-long hair.
But underneath it all, he was still her Remmy.
And she must find him.
The drawing room was overflowing with new arrivals, and Tessa slipped into the crush, looking for her friend.
It seemed everyone else was looking for him, too. He seemed to be at the center of every conversation she passed, and it made her stop. Because the things people were saying about him simply made no sense.
Mr. Remington Ives and…
The Rake Review? What was that?
She stopped near a group of three young women, certainly younger than her, and unmarried. They leaned close to one another, whispering behind fans.
“The May rake was absolutely scandalous.”
“I adored March. No! April! Ohhh, I cannot decide!”
“I personally prefer February.”
“Which one? The Valentine’s Day one or the one with the harem?”
“Doesn’t matter. They’re both devils.”
“Mr. Ives is a delight to look at, is he not? What did the Belle call him? Rough-hewn? Delicious.”
All three women glanced across the room, searching for… Remmy? Not for long. They returned to their huddled conversation.
“I saw him once, at Hyde Park. He has masterful thighs.”
“He’s an excellent horseman.”
“And his hair… it does rather make one think of… tugging on it.”
Remmy’s hair? Tuggable? Well, Tessa had tugged on it before, but that had been because she’d been ten and he’d teased her past all patience. Not because… because… Lord Brawly’s hand had been tangled in Lady Chattaway’s hair earlier… tugging.
Heavens. This was absurd. The young women were clearly addled. But then the next group she passed discussed the same thing.
“They say shirtless.”
“No!”
“Yes.”
Tessa rolled her eyes and popped out from between them, closer to Lady Chattaway.
Then all the air was sucked from the room, and everyone turned to the doorway, so she did too.
Remmy stood like a conquering hero, his legs spread wide and straining his buckskins, earring glinting on one lobe, neck entirely bare, and a rather voluptuous woman on each arm. They clung to him like briars to skirts, and they stared up at him with glassy eyes and slightly parted lips.
He cut through the crowd like a hot knife through butter and situated himself in a corner where the light from windows could not reach.
The women stayed close, continued clinging, whispering in Remmy’s ear now and then, making him produce a deep chuckle that shook free an avalanche of feminine sighs from one end of the room to the other.
He poured drinks for his little cohort, and they settled into a sultry little circle.
Could circles be sultry? Oh yes. She’d seen it in Italy. She recognized it now.
Remmy must have sensed Tessa’s regard. He caught her watching, winked over a raised glass, hiding behind it the corner of the faintest grin. She recognized that grin, and relief rushed through her. She knew what he was up to now. This was a drama, a play, a bit of mischief.
The rogue.
Tessa slipped toward him.