Chapter Two
Adrian Philip Rande, formerly of the Royal Horse Guards, and, for the past two years, the Marquess of Redver, studied his cards. His blank expression held no indication of his unlucky hand, nor did a stitch out of place betray any of the incessant demands made by his physical discomfort.
Were he to publicly reveal the recent, intermittent return of his childhood medical condition—which, of course, he was decidedly not inclined to do—the metaphor of scuttling spiders would have aptly described the sensation.
Spiders with jointed pins for legs and low, dragging abdomens.
The sensation that had tormented him in his youth had begun to plague him again sometime around last year’s Guy Fawkes Day.
Of late, he suffered with greater and greater frequency.
Added to his difficulties, he experienced gracefully submitting to Society’s conventions ever since the Battle of Waterloo, he’d an ever-present feeling of self-disgust.
He no longer sought explanation. He simply wanted to escape.
No reputable physician had been able to give him relief, even less so the quacks and charlatans hawking all manner of salves. So, he’d turned to cards, drink, and women for brief but blessed moments of transport. One was good, two, even better, and three, the holy bloody grail.
Tonight, he meant to capture the trifecta. Losing a small fortune would not prove a hindrance.
With a slow, pinched-lip slant of a smile, he laid down his cards.
“Gentlemen”—he nodded to the other players—“time for me to bow out. You may apply at my residence to redeem your vowels on the morrow.”
“Depriving us of your company so soon?”
Adrian’s gaze moved to the young man who’d spoken.
Insinuating chap. They’d been introduced when the fellow had first started appearing at the Den last fall, and the young man had made a persistent pest out of himself ever since.
What was his name? Dane? Crain?
Whomever he was, the man had developed the irritating tendency to show up in Adrian’s presence with alarming frequency. And the lad repeatedly failed grasp Adrian’s disinclination for closer acquaintance.
Adrian’s small circle of family, childhood, and military friends proved quite enough for him to manage, thank you.
The gentleman to Adrian’s right—his friend Harbury’s cousin Neville—rebuked the pup with a subtle shake of his head. Not the thing to question a peer’s decisions, he could almost hear Neville say.
“What I meant was goodnight, my lord,” the young man revised.
Adrian might have responded graciously.
Instead, he gave the young man a withering once-over. As the pup’s face colored, with great condescension, Adrian inclined his head.
He ignored Neville’s frown. He’d intended to be rude. Then, he shoved back his chair, and without a word, made his way across the room toward the proprietress.
He passed table after table, instinctively marking the positions of the Black Widow’s lackies, the ones who kept order. The wolf pack, she called them. Like himself, they were all former soldiers.
He appreciated that gesture on her part. Too many former soldiers barely eked out an existence since the end of the war. Many bore physical evidence of their wounds. Even more, he suspected, suffered invisible scars.
His difficulties, he didn’t count.
The war had changed him, of course. Two years had passed, and he still hadn’t learned to be comfortable at Society functions. But war had not caused his affliction to return.
Damnable thing was, he wasn’t sure what—if anything—had.
Perhaps he was simply cursed.
“Mrs. Dove-Lyon,” he greeted.
“Redver.” She used his title but did not curtsey, as usual.
In this domain, she, and she alone, reigned as queen.
As she turned, her black veil rippled. He complied with her silent command to follow.
She might be as impudent as the pup sitting back at the table, but as the owner of the establishment, she deserved his consideration.
Besides, through their long acquaintance, she’d always found a way to meet his needs, spoken and unspoken.
In fact, she knew more about him than anyone living.
He wasn’t the only one whose secrets she knew, either. Even the Home Office privately envied the information she’d collected over the years—just one of the many reasons she and her establishment could not be touched.
Slowly, and with her usual, dignified grace, she led him into her private domain. She closed the door behind them but did not take a seat.
“Your play has become deep, of late.”
He bristled. “I never wager more than I can risk.”
“Of course not,” she said dryly. “The Marquess of Redver is always in command.”
She uttered his title in an altered, bombastic voice he recognized as one she’d always used when referring to Father.
His thigh muscle twitched. He clenched and unclenched his jaw.
“Are you comparing my behavior to his?” If so, he resented the implication. “The comparison will never be apt.”
“And yet many an unwilling young man has turned into his father.”
“Enough.” An itch skittered from his hip to his knee. He cracked his neck. The air in her office was stifling. Why did she keep the room so hot? “I need the Skylark.”
She didn’t move. “If coupling ameliorates your condition, a more economical solution would be to find a wife.”
“You know that’s impossible.”
“Do I?”
He narrowed his eyes, silencing the question with a sneer. Of course, there were ambitious women who would overlook his smut-and-scandal tarnished name. He felt toward them exactly the way he felt toward his father since long before his parents’ divorce.
Revolted.
She sighed. “I indulge what you believe are your needs. But my indulgence has limits.”
He crossed his feet at the ankle and leaned against the door jam. Insouciance meant to provoke. “What have I done to displease you now?”
“You skewered one of my guests with a glance.”
He frowned. “The impudent pup at my table?”
“Not your table, Redver. But yes…that man. I’ve never known you to be uncivil. Contained, perhaps. Impassive. Even aloof. But boorishly, intentionally rude? Toward an inferior?”
She was right. Damn her. “Hardly a skewer. A gentle—”
The widow snorted.
“—set down.”
Unnerving, only being able to see her features in the muted shadow cast by the veil. Surely, she was studying him. Possibly with brow raised. Well, he would give as little away as possible.
She already knew too much.
Truth was, he didn’t know why the young man set him on edge.
“Do you treat the ‘impudent pup,’ as you called him, with disdain because he never misses one of your stepmama’s salons?”
Caroline? He visited Caroline, too? Adrian masked his surprise. “Of course not.”
“Her salons have become popular among the intellectual set…especially among young men,” the widow pointed out. “Do you begrudge the dowager marchioness the attention that comes her way?”
He frowned. “No.”
Who knew better than he how grateful she must be to be free after over a decade of managing his mean-spirited father?
The dowager deserved some happiness. His father’s second wife might be slightly younger than himself, but, while his father still lived, she’d kept the old man occupied and away from him.
And for that, as well as for her loving care of his younger sister, who was not even her child, she would forever have his gratitude.
“Why should I begrudge the marchioness anything?” he asked.
“The two of you…” She spoke carefully. “Well, if you and she have developed…” She shook her head and then sighed. “Forgive me for being blunt, but an attraction between the two of you would be understandable, if, of course, impossible—”
“Good god. Caroline?” He shuddered. “And I? Even at my worst, I would never cross such a line. What she does, apart from the rearing of Emily, is none of my concern.”
The widow exhaled as if deeply relieved. “You cannot blame me for wondering. You have been…” She stopped to revise her words. “You haven’t been quite yourself for some time.”
“What do you mean?” He feigned ignorance.
“Two years you’ve held the title. Two years since you returned form the war. You’ve maintained the fortune, attended the responsibilities of a man of property.”
“Sounds like I’m a model—”
“But,” she cut him off, “you know you haven’t made any true attempt to ingratiate yourself to the ton—to prove to them the Redver title, in your hands, will not become again synonymous with scandal.”
He scowled again, mostly because she wasn’t wrong.
“You’re of marriageable age,” she continued. “If you presented yourself properly, you could easily become the prime target of every match making mama and have your pick of the Season.”
He shuddered visibly.
“Instead, you’ve been spending more and more time here…or haunting exclusively male spaces with Harbury. I understand, of the few calls you’ve made, most have been to the dowager—”
“For Emily’s sake. Are you having me watched?”
“No. We have mutual acquaintances that keep me informed.”
He hadn’t realized he’d started scratching his thigh until she rounded her desk and crossed the room, looping her fingers around his wrist.
“If you’re as concerned for your sister as you suggest, why continue to restrict your interactions with the world? Miss D’Acre will need to be presented in the coming year.”
“I am well aware,” he snapped.
“If you married, you could ease her way. I promised your mother—”
“Don’t,” he interrupted warningly. He would not open that Pandora’s box. Not tonight. “Caroline is planning all the necessary arrangements for Emily.”
“Emily needs you. She’s been patient. We all have—”
“I know my duty,” he cut in yet again. “By the time Emily is presented, I will have overcome my…difficulties.” Some alchemy, he willed, would make the lie true.
Now, his skin was truly crawling. Twitching and moving just as if he were covered in spiders. God, he needed relief.
And he needed to stop talking about his family.