Chapter 14
After Andromena had professed her love and left, the strangest thing happened to Kerr—he found God.
Not in the Sunday sermons way. God, never that.
Not again. As a lad who’d listened to his mother’s cry when she believed herself alone, he’d committed himself to the front pew, daily and nightly prayers.
That hadn’t gotten him anywhere. Her misery persisted.
Only when he stopped attending and instead stuck to asking—when all of Eton slept—for some intervention, had the Crazed Kerr kicked his heels up.
That night, as a newly minted viscount, Kerr learned maybe that’s what it took—no sermons; just asking was good enough.
But asking favors without the bloody knees he got as a boy was far easier, and preferable, anyway.
The thing was, after his mother was finally free of the chains that bound her to a man her parents tied her to, Kerr wanted for nothing. He hadn’t asked for anything, because he hadn’t needed anything.
In the absence of logic and riddled with mind-bending terror, he turned to the Savior with a single plea: Christ, help me.
Cursing roundly, Kerr fished around the inside of his jacket until he found a cheroot. Finding the nearest brazier, he lit the scrap and filled his lungs with it.
Andromena loved him.
Kerr, who was scarred and uglier than a burnt boot—which, given her absence of horror worn by the rest, she didn’t seem to care about. And destined for madness—that she vowed to stand with him throughout.
Not to be left off the list he’d been compiling since she left was the most obvious item: whenever they were together, without fail, he made the lady cry.
He insulted her in the worst ways—a dark mark against his soul.
And he hadn’t complimented her nearly enough, a failure he only now understood after his time in the Rookeries.
All of this was a great deal for a confirmed bachelor, who would never marry, to consider.
Apparently, his stomach churned when the word starting with w and ending in ‘d’ was mentioned because he was just enough of a rogue, but not enough of one to be unaffected by an innocent lady professing.
She didn’t. Not really.
Not that he was a fellow who doubted love was real—or some form of it.
His mother had remarried to Greyhold and been blissfully happy.
Same for Culross. Rather, Kerr held the most pragmatic view of what it truly was: a mix of deep affection, fond regard, and, above all, overwhelming, all-consuming lust.
All the things he felt for…
Kerr choked on his smoke.
He wondered if there was a term that fit fellows like him. If not, there should be. For he definitely would not compromise on marriage, but now he could see that he cared about her.
Care. You more than ‘care’ about her.
Hands pressed to the limestone railing; he leaned over and looked toward the moonlit spot where Andromena had uttered the three words only his mother had ever spoken to him: “I love you.”
No, it wasn’t that. Andromena’s was a woman’s vow; a love he had not even allowed himself to consider because of his future.
Maybe that’s why something shifted in his own chest; why warmth flooded the corners he’d always thought would stay dark forever.
Your fate or your fears, a desperate voice inside his head whispered.
As a lad, he overheard servants faithful to the Hollis family and viscountess whisper about their master’s insanity when he’d been a lad of eight, just as they did about Kerr’s late grandfather. The staff spoke among themselves about the young Master Hollis had been spared.
Kerr hadn’t believed it. He knew the maids, footmen, and heads of staff cared about him.
Now, he asked the question: what if they had been right?
What if?
What if you really are that selfish? Convincing yourself of what you want to believe so you can have what you want…”
The risk was too great. She deserved far more than Kerr’s shadow. He knew Andromena, a woman that fierce and true, always knew her own heart.
If he left her alone, with the way men fell at her feet, in time someone—maybe Kilmartin—would come along, woo her, make her smile and laugh, and—
Kerr let out a muffled cry. Kerr rammed his fists on the limestone over and over, until his knuckles burned, and still, it did not lessen the anguish of thinking of Andromena with—
Click.
Kerr spun. “An…”
“Greyhold, Culross,” he said, confused by their presence.
“No one has seen you for over an hour, big brother.”
Kerr wanted to hit something again. His irksome brother would do nicely.
“You’re playing nursemaid now, little brother?”
His littler brother didn’t even blink at the bait. “You’re upset?” Greyhold drawled. “You cost me twenty quid.”
“I’m supposed to care?”
“I predicted you went to visit your mistresses at Devil’s Den.”
“They aren’t mistresses,” Kerr said. He didn’t know why, but the distinction seemed important. Nor had he been back to the Devil’s Den since he’d found Andromena outside the place that night.
“I knew you wouldn’t leave.”
Kerr tensed at something he heard in Culross’s voice. He couldn’t know Kerr was actually here for a woman—his sister-in-law.
“I said you would save yourself the trouble and find some beauty here.”
What would Culross say if he knew Kerr was with a woman—the earl’s sister-in-law? Culross wouldn’t wait for a duel. He’d kill Kerr on the spot.
“I don’t see any wicked widow around.” Greyhold touched the stone rail and looked out. “What was it my brother was saying when we came outside, Culross?”
Every mention of his scandalous conquests eroded whatever support he hoped to win from Culross.
“I believe a name that began with ‘An’…”
Kerr tensed.
Greyhold turned to Culross. “Lady Annalee, maybe? We should find the fountain as I heard—”
“The lady was at Peterloo,” Kerr said. “And is still suffering the effects, you lout.”
That shut them up. Good. If they continued their game of ‘An’ starting names, they would eventually settle on the one.
They were undeterred.
“Possibly, Lady Angela?” Greyhold ventured. “I recall only the Duke of Talbert’s sister. Is there a married or widowed one?”
Kerr did the only thing a respectable privateer would do—he sacrificed his brother. “Have your eye on Lady Angela, do you?”
“Me with a spinster lady or any respectable lady for that matter?” his enormous brother snorted. “I’d no sooner be caught with a proper miss than you, big—”
Heat hit Kerr’s face.
“Some starry-eyed virgin would never make it ten yards from either of you gentlemen; especially not Kerr,” said Culross.
But one starry-eyed virgin had, and Culross bore the blame.
The earl dropped Andromena right into Kerr’s life without any thought for how a clever, feisty siren would tempt a reckless man like him.
Kerr hadn’t braced for the other ways she made him feel, far beyond mere lust.
He took a deep draw.
Had male ribbing always been this tiresome?
Time to bring this to a close. “I am sorry to disappoint, gentlemen,” he said after he exhaled his smoke. “I was out here having a drink.” Kerr tapped the grey ash from his cigarillo onto the stone. “As in, another drink. I had a servant bringing them to me until you arrived.”
Culross didn’t budge. “My wife had a different theory…”
Greyhold groaned. “You let your wife in on the wager?”
Culross smiled. “We share everything.”
We share everything…
Kerr had a bond with Andromena, a secret kept from the world and-until now-even from himself. She held nothing back and spoke her mind. They shared everything. A smile touched his face.
Culross killed it with his next breath.
“The countess noted that Kerr hadn’t made time for gambling or women since he began working for her uncle.”
An army of house and bush crickets chittered their consensus.
Even Beethoven and Wellington in a crowded room wouldn’t have failed to hear the veiled innuendo there.
He’d had enough. “My life isn’t a bloody game for you to wager on!”
They drew back.
“What the hell do you want, Culross? You got me tied up with Abington. As if I don’t have a thousand other things to see to than your damned uncle-in-law.
” Kerr squeezed his fist so hard, he broke his cigarillo.
“Sod it all!” He dropped the barely smoked scrap and smashed it several times under his boot.
Greyhold made the mistake of offering advice. “I believe with your pent-up frustration, a visit to your mistresses at the Den is in order.”
“I’ve already told you,” Kerr snarled. “They are not my mistresses.”
Culross had a strange look to him.
“What?” Kerr snapped.
Click.
All three men whipped around toward the door.
A McQuoid, prettily dressed in green silk, and definitely not the woman he wanted it to be.
“My apologies,” the Duchess of Hartwell said somberly. “August, my sister requires your presence.”
Culross was all seriousness. “Is she—?”
“She is well. Dinner will be served shortly, and Meghan asked that I fetch you.”
The earl pressed a hand on either brother’s back. “If you two miserable bounders will excuse me, love beckons.”
When Culross reached the duchess, Greyhold whispered, “There is no glass.”
Kerr stared at the pair ahead. It took him a moment to notice his brother. “What?”
Kerr looked at his brother’s serious face.
“You said you wanted another drink. There is not even a glass here.” Leave it to his sharp brother to catch that detail.
“I…” Greyhold looked back.
Kerr frowned and followed his stare.
An ashen Duchess of Hartwell and Culross spoke for another moment, then hurried away with urgent steps.
He watched them go.
The same senses he’d used to stop a mutiny before it started now stirred to life.
“What in hell was that about?” Greyhold mused.
“With the McQuoid and Smith families, it can be anything, but never nothing.”
Greyhold thumped him between the shoulder blades. “Dinner is when we make our escape.”
“…I look forward to our dancing the dinner set…” Kilmartin had purred.
Jealousy snaked through him. “No.” Kerr would cut Kilmartin’s arms off before he let the bastard put his hands on her for the dinner set, or any other damned occasion.