Chapter 2
Later
Rhys hadn’t begun the evening intending to attend a masquerade ball.
He’d started the evening, improbably, at a rather serious-minded supper party.
But that was the thing about the Brighton season—which came after the London season and lasted from late summer through Christmas—one generally accepted invitations to balls and parties one would have ignored in London.
Which was how Rhys had found himself seated at a table at a supper party surrounded by all the preeminent politicians of the day, including none other than the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne.
Even as Rhys himself had not a lick of interest in politics.
Even as he knew this to be a serious failing of his character.
Well, it was but one of many.
He’d long accepted that fact.
However, Lord Percival Bretagne had been at this particular supper party.
A serious-minded man himself, Bretagne wasn’t a usual comrade of Rhys’s.
But Bretagne had a reputation whispered about him—shadowy dealings in the past…
perhaps in the present, too. And as Bretagne was a friend of a friend of a friend, and Rhys had needed someone well-versed in shadowy dealings, he’d called on Bretagne and laid his problem at the man’s feet. He’d been that desperate.
And luck of all luck, Bretagne hadn’t dismissed him out of hand. He’d listened and told Rhys he’d see what he could do. He would be in contact.
That was a year ago.
And in the intervening year, Rhys had heard nothing.
Until tonight.
Until from across the dining table, Bretagne had looked him straight in the eye and spoken thirteen fateful words—Sir Felix will be attending the masquerade ball tonight at the Royal Pavilion.
The trajectory of Rhys’s night switched direction in an instant. He’d stood abruptly, claiming stomach disrupt, and hastily scarpered, leaving fifty sets of lifted eyebrows in his wake. Of course, they might’ve expected as much, given it was Lord Rhys Osborne causing the kerfuffle.
Rhys had a reputation.
One, admittedly, he’d earned.
The thing was, he’d been invited to that ball. The invitation had surely made its way to every lord and lady presently in Brighton. As the son of an earl, Rhys counted.
Even if he was only a third son.
So, here he was stepping into the Royal Pavilion at ten in the evening.
Beyond its grandiosity, this palace was something of an interesting hodgepodge of India-come-to-England.
As if it were an Englishman’s vision of the subcontinent’s grandeur that he would never see firsthand, but had studied in reports and paintings.
In fact, Rhys supposed that was exactly what the Royal Pavilion was—King George IV’s dream of Indian splendor.
A fever dream, really, with its onion domes and minarets that were neither entirely Indian nor English, but a style all their own.
As Rhys approached the front entrance, he adjusted his thin black mask and presented the footmen guarding the door with the invitation he’d stopped by his hotel to retrieve.
Granted entry with a nod and a murmured, “My lord,” Rhys stepped into the dimly lit interior, music from stringed instruments wafting through the air, every dark corner an invitation for close conversation.
Of course, that was entirely the point of a masquerade ball—close conversation…intrigue…amorous pursuits…decadence. Riding along the edge of the music came laughter, too, and gaiety. A feeling of spontaneity sparked through the air, as if anything could happen at any moment—possibility.
A feeling that lifted one out of one’s life for a night.
One didn’t have to be oneself.
One could be anyone.
Of course, dawn would inevitably arrive—and, with it, bleary-eyed reality.
But at ten in the evening, the night was crisp and young.
Dawn—and reality—were hours away.
Except, this wasn’t the narrative Rhys’s night would follow.
He wasn’t here for decadence or gaiety or amorous pursuits.
He’d had enough of those to last him a lifetime.
He was here for Sir Felix Mortimer.
But, really, he was here for redemption.
That was the possibility that lay at the heart of this night for him.
As he wound through opulent, gilded rooms done in the chinoiserie decor so popular in the last century, Rhys caught the light of recognition in several pairs of masked eyes and experienced not an iota of surprise.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, black-haired and silver-eyed. He’d stood out in a crowd all his life.
But that wasn’t the only reason he would’ve been recognized.
He would’ve been expected, as in the eyes of Society, he was a waster and a rake.
And wasters and rakes liked masquerade balls, didn’t they?
He lifted a coupe of champagne off a passing tray—and didn’t touch his lips to it.
That was the important thing.
He didn’t have a problem with drink, as such.
But he did have a problem with the paths drink led him down.
So, he’d learned at the beginning of this long last year to accept one drink and nurse it all night, unimbibed.
The thing about becoming a waster and a rake—and he’d had many sober hours…days…weeks…months to contemplate this—it was born in the lap of success. All it took was one good run at the cards and the dice and the women.
That was how the slide into dissolution began.
It began with winning.
And he’d won—for years.
Then at some point he hadn’t noticed, he’d stopped winning.
And that had gone on for years, too.
Until a year ago.
It had been the end of the quarter and his stipend for the next three months hadn’t yet arrived in his bank account, but he’d wanted a usual night out.
So, he’d walked into Papa’s study and taken his signet ring, which he would use to gain entry into a game, then earn it back.
Come morning, he would’ve replaced it back in Papa’s desk drawer, with no one ever the wiser.
That night hadn’t even been the first time he’d done it.
Except that night, he hadn’t earned it back.
He’d lost it to Sir Felix Mortimer in a game of Loo.
But that hadn’t been the true low point of his career as a waster and a rake.
It had been the confession to Papa, for he’d had to confess, otherwise loyal servants would’ve come under suspicion for theft.
Papa hadn’t shouted. He’d listened quietly. Then once Rhys finished, he’d expressed disappointment and resignation and not one ounce of surprise that his third son had done such a thing as gamble away his signet ring on a hand of cards.
It was Papa’s lack of surprise and utter resignation that had been Rhys’s nadir—and what had turned his life around one hundred and eighty degrees.
However, turning one’s life around and finding purpose was a more challenging pursuit than it looked from the outside. He wasn’t soldier material, and he certainly wasn’t fit for the church. Business… He liked the sound of it, but he didn’t have any ideas or skills, as such.
The fact was he’d excelled at being a waster and a rake. With his looks and charm, he had all the natural gifts for the pursuit, really. Simply, something got in his blood when he was holding cards…spinning a wheel…tossing dice…bedding a woman…
He shook the thought away.
He would reach his thirtieth birthday next year.
He truly needed to get something going.
But Sir Felix had to be dealt with first.
After the rotter won the ring off Rhys, he’d taken himself straight across the channel and to the Continent, where he’d begun blatantly flaunting the Earl of Ashburn’s signet ring and bragging to every available ear that he’d won it off the earl’s waster son, Lord Rhys Osborne.
Which he’d been doing for the last year.
So, Rhys had sought out the whispered skills of a friend of a friend of a friend—Lord Percival Bretagne—who had counseled patience and clean living.
He’d also confirmed for Rhys something he’d suspected—that Sir Felix was a card cheat, which, even as it made Rhys’s blood boil, had come as no surprise.
With no alternative available to him, Rhys had exercised patience and clean living with a few unbreakable rules for himself…
No drinking.
No gambling.
No more married women…or women, in general.
His appetites were too strong, for he’d realized women—the flirting…the chase…the consummation—were an addiction, too.
It had been a long, hard year.
He entered the banqueting room, which had been transformed for the night into a ballroom with dozens of couples swirling across the gleaming dancing floor beneath the warm sparkle of blazing chandeliers.
He moved along the periphery like a shadow, his eye scanning the tops of heads for Sir Felix’s bald patch or the flash of emerald from Papa’s signet ring.
Ahead, a vibrant blonde surrounded by a crush of men snagged his eye.
She was wearing a mask, of course, but not much else that would leave anything to the imagination.
A dramatic black-and-gold creation, the bottom half of the dress was wide and floaty in the typical style of a ballgown, but the top half was a different matter altogether, fitted to her as if it were a second skin.
Actually, the dress provided ample coverage, but the body beneath it simply wouldn’t be contained—curvy…
lush… She was the sort of woman men vied with each other over—which was, in fact, what the gentlemen surrounding her were presently doing.
And the woman?
Her laughter betrayed not an ounce of care.
A year ago, Rhys would’ve tossed his hat into that ring—and he would’ve prevailed.
The reasons were simple and immutable.
He was a lord.
He was handsome.
He was charming.
And he was a rake known to be endowed with certain gifts.
What could he say?
Word got around about that sort of thing.
Two or three or ten drinks, and she would’ve been a path he’d gone down—literally.
His cock filled to half-mast at the very thought.
He gave himself a mental shake.
He could hardly blame his cock though, could he?
It had been a year.
He dragged his gaze away from the woman and the chase unpursued.