Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
“Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.”
Sun Tzu, L’Art de la Guerre (The Art of War)
Michaels withdrew in haste, the door shutting with a decisive click.
Brendan stood rigid, fury rising like a tide.
Perhaps it was time to pension off that wretched butler after all.
A man who accepted his coin ought to extend a modicum of respect.
Brendan had never mistreated a servant, but the continued insolence was unacceptable.
He drew a slow breath, willing his voice to remain calm. Composure, not outrage, would rid him of this unwanted guest.
He turned back to her, voice clipped. “Harriet. What are you doing here?”
The viscountess smiled, her expression syrupy and self-satisfied. Her red curls bounced as she tilted her head, and Brendan detected the pleased gleam in her eyes.
“This is my first visit to Ridley House, Brendan,” she said, as though that explained everything.
She stepped toward him, and once more, the overpowering scent of rosewater and wine reached his nose, cloying and artificial. The fragrance did not complement the space. It invaded it, masking the faint scent of aged paper and wood polish that normally brought him comfort.
“I realized that now you are a married man, it is perfectly respectable for me to call upon your wife,” she continued, the smirk curling her painted lips betraying any pretense of civility. “I could always claim I came to see that little featherbrain you married.”
Brendan’s jaw tensed. How had he once found her enticing? Her décolletage was aggressively on display, her corset pressing her gown to the edge of impropriety. He could not understand how he had ever mistaken this theatrical parade for elegance.
Not since Lily.
Lily, with her open laughter and quick wit. With her scent of honey and her bright, intelligent eyes that shone even in a dimly lit room. There was no comparison.
“I do not wish to receive a visit,” he said sharply, his tone resolute.
Harriet arched a brow and took in the chamber with a mocking gaze. “Your home is … quaintly Gothic.”
He fought the flush rising in his neck, determined to see her out before further damage could be done. “Be that as it may,” he said coldly, striding across the room to throw open the door Michaels had so thoughtlessly closed, “I do not receive visitors without invitation.”
Before he could call for a footman, Harriet advanced again, lifting her hand slightly, her fingers brushing the air near his coat in a gesture that hovered …
too familiar, too bold. Brendan took a measured step back, spine straightening, his presence hardening like a shuttered door.
The impropriety of the moment hung in the air between them, unmistakable and uninvited.
“You cannot prefer that silly debutante to me,” she murmured, her voice dropping into an insinuating hush.
Brendan stared at her, astonished. “It is time for you to go,” he said, voice low with tightly controlled anger.
Harriet swayed slightly, the boldness in her face flickering into uncertainty. “You would not discard me the way Perry Balfour did last year, would you? I am … fashionable. Admired. Most gentlemen are honored to spend time with me.”
Brendan shut his eyes in horror. Was Harriet having a sodding crisis of the soul? And was he not a thorough idiot for picking up with her after Perry had left Town to marry little Emma Davis? Perry had warned him to stay away from the widow, but Brendan had thought he could handle her.
“I beg of you. You must leave at once.”
It would seem he was now going to pay for his error in judgment involving Lady Slight yet again. His association with this particular widow was proving to be a very poor choice.
Somehow, he needed to get the viscountess out of his home before Lily returned. It would be the height of disrespect for his bride to find his former paramour in her new home. But how to remove the viscountess expediently, without wounding her dignity?
He did not know how to march a woman out, and his skills of diplomacy were failing him in such an unprecedented situation.
Brendan had never had an overlap with the women he was pursuing.
He had always been a one-woman kind of man, so there had never been any jealous lovers or unseemly displays of emotion.
His affairs had always ended naturally, both parties happy to move on.
He did not seek drama in his life, an unfortunate hindrance now, as he had no relevant experience in disentangling himself from someone like Harriet.
I must get her out before Lily returns.
Carefully, he lifted his hands and placed them with deliberate restraint near her arms, an unmistakable signal to create distance, not contact.
“Harriet,” he said in a quiet, unyielding tone, “please step back.”
She did not. Instead, her posture shifted forward, the fabric of her gown brushing his coat as she closed the space between them, her face far too near.
It felt all wrong. Every inch of him recoiled. He wanted his little chatterbox with her quick wit and luminous smile, not this forced intimacy, not this painful shadow of a past mistake.
Brendan took another step back, but Harriet leaned in again, her presence oppressive. He shifted, attempting to guide her back without insult, but she clung to him like a woman desperate to reclaim something already lost.
“Good evening, Wesley. Do you happen to know where Lord Filminster is at the moment?”
Lily had decided to find Brendan forthwith to discuss the gossip in the news sheet that morning. She ought to have spoken to him earlier, when the opportunity had presented itself, because her anxiety over it had grown exponentially on the way home from Sophia.
Ordinarily, Lily preferred to tackle worrying issues as quickly as possible.
She hated having thoughts fester in her head, and there could be no more poisonous fear than the notion of her husband being unfaithful with the voluptuous widow.
Brendan had done nothing to deserve mistrust, so she must simply speak with him.
“His lordship is … in the … library.” Wesley’s pleasant face was stiff, and he was clearly reluctant to impart Brendan’s whereabouts. Lily’s brows drew together in query, but the footman merely turned a ruddy shade before darting off to put away her bonnet and pelisse.
Heading down the dim hall in the opposite direction the servant had taken, with First John trailing a few feet behind, Lily saw the library door standing open and moved to walk through it.
She stopped in shock.
Her gaze collided with the unwelcome sight of Lady Slight far too close to Brendan in the doorway, her arms wrapped around him in a way that made Lily’s stomach twist. Her head began to swim. She realized she had stopped breathing.
Inhaling a reedy breath, her eyes flickered to Brendan, who appeared … appalled.
Appalled he has been caught?
“Lady Slight! What an unexpected … Has anyone offered you any tea? I must apologize for not being here to receive … I do hope that Lord Filminster has been …”
From a great distance, Lily heard herself speaking and wished she could slap herself into silence.
Shut up, Lily!
She had never hated her propensity to babble more than she did in that moment.
Her nerves were speaking for her, when what she really wanted was to scream at the widow to remove herself from Brendan’s person.
It was pure drama, a scene from a Drury Lane production, complete with the three of them and First John standing in the wings.
And, suddenly, Lily did not have the strength to deal with it.
She just wanted to disappear into one of the many gloomy rooms of Ridley House and cry. All her worst fears had been realized, and her hopes of finding love with Brendan Ridley were for naught.
“I shall leave you to your visit, then.”
Spinning away, Lily ran down the hall, passing First John as she hurried to the little drawing room where she and Brendan had shared their first kiss … the day she had believed their marriage stood a chance. The wonderful, perfect day when she had fallen in love with her new husband.
“Lily!” Brendan’s strangled voice called after her, but she did not stop.
Running inside, she slammed the door behind her and fumbled to lock it with trembling hands. First John was not a welcome visitor just now.
Hurling herself onto a settee, Lily curled into a ball and wept in the empty room.
She had thought that, after what she had done for him and the way he had looked at her on their wedding day, they could build something real. That she had made progress in her campaign to compel Brendan to fall in love with her.
How had she ever thought she could compete with all that feminine sophistication on display?
Most men of the peerage would give their eyeteeth for Lady Slight’s attention, and foolish little Lily had thought she could convince a worldly man like Brendan to fall in love with her … by being honest and cheerful and changing her wardrobe.
What a farce.
“Oh, dear! Your wife seems a trifle upset.”
Harriet’s voice lilted with mockery, but her posture betrayed something more grasping.
She leaned in toward him, far too close for comfort, her chin tilted up as though she might collapse against him again.
Brendan growled in fury, barely tempering his impulse as he stepped back and raised a hand, not to touch, but to signal distance.
Enough.
His restraint held firm as he moved decisively, leading her back into the library with a stiff arm extended to indicate the path, careful to avoid even the semblance of further intimacy.
The cloying cloud of rosewater and wine made him gag once more as she finally took a stumbling step away, her blue eyes widening in surprise.