Chapter Thirteen
He had come in his own goddamn trousers.
And now his goddamn brother was outside the door.
And if he wasn’t mistaken, he was with Miss Tilly Perkins.
And it appeared that they were—arguing.
“It isn’t your right, Mr. Westmore,” Tilly said in an emphatic voice, “to speak for my preferences! Not to George. It isn’t right.”
“And why is that?” Severn said, in a tone significantly more heated than any Malcolm was used to hearing from his slyest, coolest brother.
“Because-because it’s not gentlemanly!”
“Whoever said that I was a gentleman?”
They appeared to have stopped their progress toward the dungeon. Indeed, Severn and Tilly seemed to be right against the closet door itself.
He felt Scarlett right her skirts in the dark. There was no way, he feared, of fixing his own appearance. He could only be thankful that he was wearing dark trousers. Still, he knew that it would be miserably uncomfortable to face Severn and Tilly with his smalls soaked in his own seed.
Dear God, what had he done?
It wasn’t as if he were some rake who could expect himself to be insensitive to the touch of a woman. He wasn’t surprised that he had spent in his trousers from feeling Scarlett’s delicious quim on his fingertips.
However, he was enraged at himself for his complete inability to stop hounding her.
She had made clear that she wanted him to stay away.
And even if she hadn’t seemed very repulsed by him a few minutes ago, that didn’t change anything.
They had been, once more, in a strange situation.
It didn’t change how she clearly felt about him. That she wanted him to leave her alone.
And yet he couldn’t stop, could he?
Why did this woman have this effect on him?
But before he could contemplate that question any further, Tilly’s voice came through the other side of the door again.
“Even you have honor, Severn. Do what you may in London.”
“How can you be sure?”
While there was nothing about this conversation that was explicitly inappropriate, Malcolm did think it sounded a little bit too … intimate … for one between Severn and George’s favorite.
“I just am.”
It sounded like Severn and Tilly were speaking to each other quite closely, indeed. If he wasn’t mistaken, at least one of them was leaning against the door itself…
“We need to get out,” Scarlett whispered to him in the dark.
She was right. But he wasn’t eager, as it were, to face the cold light of day—or to give up his intimacy with Scarlett, which he could only guess would never again be repeated.
“You forget I wasn’t born a gentleman, Tilly. I was born a disgrace. And so I make my own rules of conduct.”
“I don’t believe that you would ever want to upset a lady. I don’t believe that of you.”
“I am not going to be silent and let my brother give you less than you deserve.”
“It is not your right to say what I deserve!”
“Am I mistaken then that you would want a honeymoon? That you wouldn’t be content to settle immediately?”
“I-I—”
“Because I remember when we spoke last spring, Tilly. You told me something different.”
“I don’t … recall.”
“You don’t? I think you do. I believe you told me that you dreamed of seeing Paris. And Vienna. And Rome. That you hoped to go to these places on your honeymoon.”
“I say many silly things to silly gentlemen at silly balls.”
“Maybe,” Severn said. “But did you kiss all those other silly gentlemen?”
Dear Lord, Malcolm thought. Had he heard that correctly?
No, it couldn’t be.
Malcolm wasn’t sure what Severn was doing with Miss Tilly Perkins—but he also knew that he had heard quite enough.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes,” hissed Scarlett.
He stood up, bracing her against him, and pushed the chair back towards the clutter it had come from. With the extra space, they were both just able to stand.
Malcolm banged on the door and yelled, “Severn!”
“What in the devil? Malcolm?”
“In here!” Malcolm bellowed.
The door sustained multiple muffled bangs without moving and then—after a particularly strong thud—groaned and swung open, illuminating the space.
He peered out and saw Severn, looking distinctly vexed, and Miss Tilly, who had flushed an almost alarming shade of pink.
Malcolm prayed that he and Scarlett did not look too disheveled. He stole a glance over at her, and she looked no less composed than usual—damn her. No one would believe that she had just ridden his fingers to orgasm. He was not at all convinced, however, that he looked as kempt.
“Greetings, brother,” Severn said, who despite his cool tone did not look quite as calm as usual.
“The door,” Malcolm said, aware that he was proffering an explanation that Severn hadn’t asked for. “It sticks. We stuck. We got stuck, I mean.”
“Ah, of course.”
Malcolm had the distinct impression that Severn would have said more if he himself hadn’t just been caught having a rather too intimate conversation with Tilly Perkins.
“It was my fault,” Scarlett said. “I opened the wrong door and walked inside heedlessly. I don’t care for small spaces and got rather turned around. When Mr. Brown came to my aid, the door closed behind us and we became stuck inside. Ridiculous, really. I am not usually such a featherbrain.”
He did not know how she managed to sound so composed. She spoke like the perfect, sophisticated chaperone, who now found herself the victim of the antics of a wild house party.
“My apologies, Miss Perkins,” Severn said, his face now returned to its usual suavity.
“Parkhorne Hall can be positively barbarous, especially to outsiders. I am sure you had no notion of what primitive games you would be subjected to upon your arrival. My sister, the marchioness, is the worst of all, I’m afraid. ”
“Yes, Beatrice has audacity sending us to the dungeon,” Malcolm said.
Severn rolled his eyes. “That is Beatrice. Always has been. And since she became a marchioness, she has had no one and nothing to check her. Her husband spoils her terribly. Shall we see what her next clue is?”
They moved toward the real dungeon, which, when Severn swung the door open, revealed itself to be nothing more than a little stone antechamber with a single chain mounted to the wall.
There, Beatrice had left a note.
Whether you think I’m fowl or fair,
I like to live in the open air.
If you can brave so many stairs,
you can find me way up there.
“Fowl,” Severn said, pointing to the word. “She means the goddamn birds.”
“The bloody roof,” Malcolm concurred.
Severn met his eye, and Malcolm nodded.
The roof of Parkhorne had a special meaning for he and his siblings.
When Beatrice had brought them all to the place, after the death of their father, Philip, the youngest, had been frightened by his new surroundings.
He used to climb up to the roof, for some reason no one could fathom.
He felt safe there, even though it was objectively dangerous.
They had all spent time up there, coaxing him down, trying to comfort him.
Malcolm had to admit that he understood Philip’s feelings.
Parkhorne had felt vast and unfamiliar to him as well, even though he had been ten years older than the boy.
Severn, of course, had always been different from Malcolm and Sally and Philip.
His mother, Mrs. Westmore, owned the small estate that neighbored Parkhorne.
He had grown up from the beginning playing with George and exploring Parkhorne by his side.
Malcolm did not know when exactly Mrs. Westmore and Mrs. Salisbury had fallen in love—for all he knew, it might have been many years before the death of his father.
Nevertheless, George and Severn had been intimates—not to mention secret half brothers—since their infancy.
Because his mother was a gentlewoman, and because of the relationship between Mrs. Westmore and Mrs. Salisbury, Severn had a comfort and an ease around Parkhorne and in the upper classes that the other three had either never had—himself, Sally—or had worked to acquire—Philip, seemingly.
“She cannot think it safe for everyone to tramp up to the roof,” Malcolm objected, as they left the corridor. They ascended the stairs, passed the kitchens, and gained the first floor.
He chanced a glance at Scarlett, and she still looked peaked.
“Miss Perkins,” he said, unable to help himself. “Won’t you rest? I do not think you equal to climbing to the roof, after the fright you have endured.”
To his surprise, she did not react in irritation. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Brown. I do think I am done scavenging for now.”
“As am I,” Tilly said. “I have had quite enough of scavenging for today. I should attend my sister. She will need to come and rest in my room. I shan’t have her so far off when she is feeling poorly.”
Malcolm ignored the twist in his sternum at the mention of Scarlett’s out-of-the-way lodgings. He wasn’t sure how he would be able to sleep there tonight, with her only down the hall, knowing what had just passed between them in that closet.
“Very well,” Severn said. “Good day, Miss Perkins and Miss Tilly.”
Malcolm bowed and then watched as the two women set off for the staircase.
He hated seeing Scarlett leave. He already wanted to return to that closet, to hold her against him, to give her pleasure.
A very real part of him wanted to follow her, to press her for her hand in marriage, to let him do the right thing after he had touched her—twice—in such an intimate fashion. But he knew he could not—should not.
She had made it abundantly clear that she regarded marriage to him as undesirable. He had caught her at a vulnerable moment, when her fright tipped over into lust, and he needed to forget about it in a gentlemanly fashion.
It did not matter that he had never been so intimate with a woman before. That he would never, for the rest of his days, forget those minutes in that closet. That he was sure he would die thinking of her moans and her soft little sighs and the way she felt on his fingers as she—
“Stuck in the closet, eh?” Severn jibbed.
“It was an accident.”
Severn chuckled. This little chuckle, so smooth and knowing, irked Malcolm. He knew that Severn had become very worldly in the past few years. But he was still Malcolm’s younger brother. For some reason, at present, Malcolm was not inclined to let him forget it.
“You were having quite the interesting conversation with Miss Perkins,” he proffered. “It seems as if you’ve given more thought to a honeymoon with the lady than George has.”
“I have not,” he snapped. “Or if I have, it is only because George hasn’t given such matters proper consideration.”
“Your interest in George’s honeymoon plans is keen indeed.”
“What are you suggesting, Malcolm? If you are trying to say something, you might as well come out and say it.”
He hadn’t meant to rile Severn quite so thoroughly. Or not exactly. He had merely wanted to distract him from his own line of questioning—and to remind him who the elder amongst them was.
But now that he had received such an invitation, Malcolm found he did have something to say.
He turned toward Severn. He and George had their father’s eyes—all of the siblings did, except for Malcolm.
Their father had been fair and blond, but he had had dark eyes, an unusual combination.
While none of his siblings had inherited his father’s coloring, except for himself, they had all received his dark eyes, the one feature that Malcolm had not gotten from his sire.
This physical difference had always set Malcolm apart from the rest in a way he despised.
“If you aren’t serious about interfering with Tilly and George,” Malcolm said slowly, “then you should stop interfering with Tilly and George.”
“I am not interfering.” Severn glowered. “I am merely giving my brother a few hints. You know he is unschooled in the ways of women.”
The same, of course, could be said of Malcolm.
Although, perhaps, a little less after his recent encounters with Scarlett.
God help him.
“He may be unschooled in the ways of women,” Malcolm said. “But one doesn’t need such an education to understand that what you were saying to Miss Tilly did not seem to be about George at all.”
Malcolm wasn’t going to push his luck and bring up the matter of the kissing that Severn had referenced. He was going to pretend that he hadn’t heard that.
“Ridiculous. Do you know how many women await my return in London? I have much more interesting affairs to attend to than Tilly and George and where they honeymoon.”
“If that is really true, brother, then I suggest you stop talking about it. Because the only person who seems to have a problem with George and Tilly’s honeymoon plans is yourself.”
“Bollocks you.” He sneered. “And by the way, Malcolm, I’ve been stuck in a closet a time or two. I’d bet twenty guineas that you weren’t just talking Miss Perkins down from her fear of tight spaces in there. A tight space, indeed. Yes, I’d wager.”
“You know nothing,” Malcolm growled. “Leave it.”
Severn held up his hands. “If you extend me the same consideration.”
He knew what his brother was saying, of course.
Tell no one of my conversation with Tilly, and I’ll keep your very private audience with Scarlett to myself.
“Of course,” he said, his ire at his brother fading.
He didn’t know what Severn wanted with Tilly. Or if he really wanted anything at all. Either way, it wasn’t his business.
“Come, let us find some luncheon,” Severn said, clapping him on the shoulder. His own anger seemed to have evaporated as well. “And forget about the ladies. They aren’t our concern. That’s George’s trouble.”
“Agreed.”
Malcolm wasn’t sure if he was lying to Severn with that assent.
Or if Severn was lying to him with his own statement of indifference.
But right now, it appeared both of them needed to believe that the Perkins sisters were no concern of theirs.