Chapter 5
It had been no easy thing letting Miss Stillbrooke stride off, chin up, shoulders back, reticule in hand, with her wrapped chicken to whatever place she was living.
Not at all. Especially after he had discovered that he admired and liked her so well.
And desired her. He wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.
Any sort of pretense would do him no good.
From the moment he’d spotted her gaping at his half-clothed form to her brilliant banter, he’d felt his desire for her spark and grow into a flame.
It was deuced inconvenient. But in his experience, life often was.
He did not know what he had been expecting when the Duke of Rivers had told him about Miss Nancy Stillbrooke, but it had not been what he had seen.
The beautiful young woman, who was clearly extremely capable and happy to tell him to mind his own business, was doing things to his system that had never been done before, which was saying something.
He had spent the latter half of his existence traveling the world, being exposed to the most beautiful women, the most talented seductresses, and never really feeling completely bowled over by any of them.
He adored women. Women were wonderful. He understood the financial needs of the sex, based upon the rules that men had placed around them.
He understood that often the interactions between men and women were really a financial game because men had set it up that way.
He tried to operate outside of those rules. But the truth, whether in marriage or with mistresses, contracts and finance were a part of the equation.
This was going to be a blasted difficult thing to negotiate, because if there was one thing he was certain about it? Miss Stillbrooke was proud.
But pride didn’t feed one, clothe one, or secure one safe, warm lodgings.
He was going to have to give her an increase in payment, and he hadn’t even paid her yet.
She had convinced him quickly to give his own staff a raise, which he thought was very good.
And now? He had dire suspicions that she was living in a ratty little room somewhere in a place that no young lady should be living.
And worst of all, he was thinking about all of this while doing a promenade up and down a gilded ballroom with the ceiling encrusted in gold and painted with frolicking nymphs.
Frolicking nymphs had never really been his line, except for the fact that he had been raised to dance under frolicking nymphs. When one was born to be a duke, or to any particular title, frolicking nymphs were always going to be part of the equation.
He’d gotten quite used to travel. His father had loved it and introduced him to it.
And really, a part of him wished he was still traveling now, that he could be in India or any country in the extremely large continent of Africa, or even South America, exploring, learning, seeing, looking at a mountain and deciding that he would climb it.
Much to his own pride, he had climbed several. Sometimes the only thing to do when one felt down about the world was to climb a mountain or ride a horse wildly across a desert.
He had many beautiful Arabians, several of them having been acquired from significant rulers in Arabia. He loved things that went fast. He loved things that were hard, and he loved things that were a challenge.
And he had a distinct feeling that Miss Stillbrooke was at least two out of the three things that he loved so dearly.
“Oh, Your Grace,” said his current dancing partner, Lady Euphemia, as she clutched his gloved hand and attempted to bat her lashes at him. Unfortunately, he did not find the batting of lashes to be a particularly interesting form of the female mating dance.
He understood that this was all part of the English custom, but he didn’t want to do it. He liked dancing, but not like this.
This all felt very artificial. And as he looked right to left at the young ladies in their various concoctions of pale gowns and their mamas standing on the sidelines in much darker or brighter colors, crusted in jewels and feathers, he let out a sigh.
It was all the same. Every single time. He understood. But every ball had feathers and jewels and unmarried ladies in pastels and their mothers in jewel tones. Did no one wish for variety?
This was his life now.
He had had to give up roaming the world to come back to dance about a room surrounded by ladies who were copies of each other. Well, it could be much worse. He knew that, so he wasn’t really allowed to claim depression or sorrow or even ennui.
“Are you enjoying the ball?” the young lady asked, her lace collar fluttering.
He blinked. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”
She blinked too and said a little louder as if he might perhaps be hard of hearing, “Are you enjoying the ball?”
“No,” he said honestly before he could stop himself.
And as soon as he did, he wished he could kick himself with own polished dancing slipper.
It wasn’t her fault she’d been raised like this!
That all the young ladies had been raised to be exactly the same.
To be exactly like their mothers, and their mothers before them.
He winced, cleared his throat, and ventured, “Are you?”
Her eyes flared and she swung a swift glance to her mama, who was clearly giving her instructions from the sideline on how best to please him.
“It’s not you,” he blurted suddenly, feeling quite the scoundrel, wishing he was again out under the stars, far away from the ton. “I just don’t care for all of this.”
“Oh,” she said. She considered this, then, as if speaking from a script she could not deter from, she cleared her throat and said, “Would you like to go out on the veranda?”
“Distinctly not,” he said with a sigh.
The last thing he wanted to do was to go out onto the veranda with one of these young ladies and end up in a situation which he would have to live with for the rest of his life.
The young ladies were all well and good, but they simply were not for him.
Not if he was going to survive life in the ton.
No, he needed someone who would defy his whims, tell him what for, and live as he did. And as soon as the music was done, he turned to Lady Euphemia, gave her a bow, and led her back to her mama, who was waving her feathered fan quite rapidly, clearly hoping that a proposal was about to be made.
He gave the lady a quick bow and then headed off, gritting his teeth. He needed a brandy. Well, any man in his situation probably needed a brandy. How was he going to negotiate years of this?
He couldn’t avoid it, not really, because dukes did have to make the rounds. One couldn’t be an island. The poet John Donne was correct. No one could get anything done as an island. Even so, he headed into the billiards room and immediately spotted Rivers, Westfort, Skyburn, and Seaborough.
They were all here. He wasn’t sure why.
“Why aren’t you all home with your wives? Except you, of course, Rivers. You don’t have one.”
His friends laughed.
“Moral support,” declared Westfort.
“We couldn’t leave you and Rivers on your own,” said Seaborough with faux seriousness.
The four were sitting at a table drinking brandy and gossiping. Men were excellent gossips. He knew that better than anyone.
“We were waiting to see which lady you might choose for your wife so you could join the married men’s club,” said the Duke of Westfort.
“None of them,” he said, resigned.
“That bad, is it?” Skyburn queried.
“Your standards, old boy, are just too high,” put in Seaborough.
“No,” Rivers said. “His standards aren’t too high. He’s just too jaded for all of them.”
He arched a brow. “Is that an insult or a compliment?”
“You decide,” Rivers replied.
“I am deciding it’s a compliment. They’re all perfectly fine,” he lamented. “But I can’t imagine my life married to one of them.”
“You don’t really have to spend time with your wife,” the Duke of Rivers drawled softly.
Skyburn let out a peep of dismay. “The idea that anyone would want to marry a young woman and not spend time with her is appalling. Don’t you see ladies are people? They’re not just breeding machines,” he said.
“Can you imagine something to that effect?” said the Duke of Rivers with a shudder. “How efficient that would be.”
“I’m not interested in efficiency,” replied Pierce. “I’m interested in having a good life.”
“Glad to hear it,” Skyburn said, clapping him on the back. “I’d hate to think that you were one of those people who could just go through life like a wet blanket, pleased with the barest of circumstances, just populating the future.”
“I don’t know how anyone can do that, frankly,” said Pierce as another group of gentlemen came into the room and sat before the fire. They immediately began discussing their mistresses and the dog races.
Rivers rolled his eyes. “Too many people do, and it gets them into bad circumstances. Have you seen the newspapers lately?”
“You are obsessed with the newssheets,” pointed out Skyburn.
“I don’t read newssheets,” Pierce said. “I read novels.”
“Well, you should,” Rivers declared. “We should all be obsessed with them! It’s appalling what’s happening these days. People engaged in the wildest behaviors, all because they married someone that they’re not really interested in.”
“You seem most passionate about this,” said Pierce to Rivers.
“Oh, I am. I am,” Rivers allowed, smoothing a hand over his perfectly tied cravat. “I don’t believe that people should be miserable.”
“Aren’t they all miserable?” Pierce replied jauntily, taking up a glass of brandy from one of the footmen.
“We’re not,” assured Skyburn, lifting his glass of brandy in salute. “We have magnificent wives. We are the happiest of men.”
Rivers smiled, his lips twitching. “Yes, you all do and are.”
“Come now, Rivers, when is it to be your turn?” asked Westfort.
“Oh, I have no idea,” Rivers said, suddenly looking as if he had sat upon a hot coal. “I have many years yet to decide.”
“Not true,” said Seaborough, tilting his glass towards the firelight, contemplating the amber hue. “You, Your Grace, are about to be positively a relic.”
Rivers snorted. “I’m not yet forty!”
“Old,” sighed Seaborough with exaggerated woe.
“Indeed,” added Westfort gravely. “You best get married. You don’t want to put off the best years of your life.”
“I think that the best years of my life surely should be when I’m unmarried,” Rivers decried.
For some reason, Pierce thought this to be absurd.
“How could you say that?” he said. “The best years of one’s life should be spent with one’s dearest companion.”
“Are you truly seeking a wife then?” Westfort asked, leaning forward.
“Clearly,” Pierce groaned. “I was out there dancing away.”
“You’re not going to find your wife there, are you?” said Skyburn. “A man like you.”
“I think you have to think outside the ballroom,” said Seaborough.
“Fair,” Pierce allowed, though he wasn’t sure where to look. “But I don’t think I can go down to the East End, find a capable barmaid there, and put her in charge of all my estates. Besides, the ton would devour her.”
“It is a frustrating thing that the ladies who would likely be the very best for the ton are immediately eliminated based upon their birth or location,” Rivers growled.
“What an observation,” Pierce said before taking a long drink of cherry-tinged beverage touched with the notes of oak.
“Yes,” Rivers agreed. “But we do the best that we can with what we have. Now, go out and dance again.”
“No,” he said. “I think I’m going to leave this place and seek more interesting entertainment.”
“Right. Shall we all go then?” Seaborough said, clapping his hands together.
“No,” he countered quickly. “You need to go back to your wife. I’m not going to be accused of leading you astray.”
Rivers stood. “I’m not married. I’ll go with you. Should we go to Fennyman’s?”
“I don’t gamble,” Pierce returned with a shrug.
“Nor do I,” Rivers said before he arched his brows. “But that doesn’t stop me from watching other people throw their lives away.”
Pierce sputtered, “Do you get your enjoyment from watching other people make the mistakes of their lives?”
Rivers’ brow furrowed. “No, I get enjoyment from figuring out which people need to be helped.”
Pierce rather admired Rivers for it, and he thought it to be true. Most men only thought about helping others in the abstract. He wondered how Rivers helped people practically, but he had a strong feeling that Rivers did.
But tonight, he didn’t want help or company. He needed to sort out the thoughts in his head, the futility of finding a duchess in these rooms… And his unarguable desire for his employee, which was damned awkward.
“I bid you all good night.” He bowed to Rivers. “Good luck assisting the gamblers.” And then he turned to the others. “And hold on to your magnificent wives, for there are no others like them.”
He then headed out towards the hall, gave his respects to his hostess, and went out into the night. He didn’t know exactly what he was seeking, but he could feel that he was seeking something very intense indeed.
It wasn’t generally the done thing for a gentleman to walk, especially since there wasn’t a good deal of light.
He looked about, caught sight of a young boy with a lantern, and called, “You, young man. I shall pay you handsomely if you guide me down to the taverns.”
The young boy gave him a quick nod, held his lantern up, and Pierce followed along the muddy road lined with wood boards and stones.
As a gentleman, he knew he was relatively safe. Nobody was going to attack him, at least nobody with any sense. And if they did, he might have a good time defending himself. He certainly was capable.
He felt a bit odd about leaving his friends behind. After all, they were likely the best antidote to whatever strangeness he was feeling, but he knew that wasn’t true. He knew that the best antidote to what he was feeling was Miss Stillbrooke, and he wondered where the blazes she was.
Part of him wanted to walk the streets of London all night until he found her, but that would be absurd, and that would be deeply inappropriate.
And so, instead of walking towards wherever she might be living, and he was sure he could find out if he desperately wished to, he called to the boy and halted him. He switched direction, away from the taverns and towards Holborn.
There was nothing but a mindless escape in the taverns.
But in Holborn? He could change lives. It was incredible how a few words on a piece of paper, artfully written by a solicitor, truly could change the lives of those mentioned therein.
Yes, tonight he would wake up his man of law and, for his peace of mind, he would draw up several documents for the betterment of his staff and a young lady who clearly needed help.