A Tale of Two Lovers Read online

  “Frankly, I think it smacks of genius.” His father inhaled and exhaled his cigar smoke in a steady stream of gray that promptly faded into the rest of the stale air.

  Some animals in the wild ate their young. Apparently, his father would allow his only son to die of starvation or be henpecked to death. Poverty or matrimony indeed!

  “It’s sneaky, underhanded, and meddling like the worst society matron.”

  “We have a tradition in this family,” the earl continued, his voice now booming once he hit upon one of his favorite subjects. “Roxbury men whore it up with the best of them until the age of thirty when they settle down, marry, and produce heirs. You are two and thirty and show no signs of reforming your behavior.”

  He could easily marry if he wanted to. Roxbury loved women and they loved him back. Honestly, he could have his pick of any of the adorable, ditzy debutantes because he had money, a title and was not hideous.

  But he did not want to marry. He loved women, plural. Promising to love a woman, singular—for ever and ever—was something he could not do. At heart, for all his rakish ways, he was a romantic. But he was also a levelheaded realist.

  A wife would get in the way of his numerous affairs. A wife would get in the way of his life.

  Instead of gallivanting backstage at the theater for all hours, he would have to escort the missus home at the conclusion of the performance. A wife, like his mistresses, would redecorate his townhouse in strange colors like salmon, periwinkle, and harvest gold. A wife would mean brats. And that would definitely be the end of life as he knew it.

  Roxbury was quite fond of life as he knew it.

  “To hell with tradition.” Roxbury stamped out the cigar. Tradition hadn’t given a damn about Edward. He was supposed to be the heir who would marry and make brats, and leave the way clear for Roxbury to be a reckless rake until the day he expired, which would ideally happen in the arms of a buxom, comely mistress. But Edward wasn’t around anymore. He existed only in a portrait above the mantel in the drawing room and in a few poignant memories.

  “I will not have my life’s work passed along to one of your idiot cousins because you couldn’t be bothered to consort with a proper woman for long enough to put a ring on her finger and a baby in her belly. I will not be failed by both of my sons.”

  “To hell with your ultimatum,” Roxbury said in a ferocious voice before he quit the library and Carlyle House.

  Chapter 3

  White’s Gentlemen’s Club

  St. James’s Street, London

  After that incredibly disturbing interview with his father—to say nothing of all those calls that had been inexplicably refused this morning—Roxbury proceeded to White’s. A drink was certainly in order, either to toast his rebellion and impending poverty or to enjoy a last hurrah before submitting to the bonds and chains of holy matrimony. He was too blindingly mad to know what to do. Neither option appealed to him.

  Marriage—never. Poverty—no, thank you.

  He arrived at the same time as Lord Brookes, who arched his brow questioningly and sauntered past, declining to say hello. They frequently boxed together at Gentleman Jack’s and had always been on good terms. How strange.

  Roxbury sat down at a table with his old friend the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon and some other gents. They were all sipping brandies and reading the newspapers.

  All the others left. Promptly.

  There was a rush of chairs scraping the hardwood floors as they were pushed back in haste, the sound of glasses thudding on the tabletop and the crinkling of newspapers as all the other gentlemen nearby gathered their things and removed themselves to seats on the far side of the room.

  What the devil?

  The Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, usually known simply as Brandon and a longtime friend, looked at Roxbury and shook his head.

  Ever the attentive servant, Inchbald, who was approximately three hundred years old, brought over a double brandy and intoned, “My Lord, you will need this.”

  “For the love of God, what is going on?”

  What had he done now? Or not done? Did this have anything to do with the ultimatum? The calls this morning?

  Brandon merely handed his friend the newspaper he’d been reading. It was The London Weekly, a popular news rag that Roxbury wouldn’t line his trunk with. In his opinion, the gossip columnist owed her entire career to him, for his antics so often appeared in her column.

  He wasn’t the only one, of course—she’d taken down Lord Wentworth with a mention of his visits to opium dens, then related the intimate details of Lord Haile’s grand marriage proposal to all of London, and broken the news of Susannah Carrington and George Granby’s midnight elopement—but Roxbury appeared regularly enough that he could refer to it as a reminder of what he had done the previous week, should he forget.

  “At least you have a decent excuse for reading this rubbish,” Roxbury muttered. Brandon had married one of The Weekly’s notorious Writing Girls—then known as Miss Harlow—of the column “Miss Harlow’s Marriage in High Life.”

  Roxbury flipped straight to “Fashionable Intelligence” by A Lady of Distinction on page six.

  Roxbury took a sip of his drink, thoughtful. He’d wager that if this Lady of Distinction were forced to print her real name, she wouldn’t write half the things she did. Frankly, he was surprised her identity was still a secret. Speculation was rampant, of course, with most of the ton focusing on Lady something or other. That was the sort of drivel he didn’t follow.

  He possessed a sinking feeling that would soon change.

  Roxbury began to read.

  Has London’s legendary rake, Lord R—, so thoroughly exhausted the women of the ton that he must now move on to the stronger sex?

  Roxbury downed his drink in one long gulp, feeling the burn of the brandy and keeping his eyes focused on the page, not daring to look up. Inchbald stood over Roxbury’s shoulder with the bottle and promptly refilled his glass.

  Indeed, dear readers, you would not believe what this author has seen! Lord R— might have been embracing the lovely J— K—, fresh from the stage in her breeches role in She Would and She Would Not. Yet for a man whose sensual appetites are notoriously insatiable, one knows not what to think.

  Inchbald poured a much-needed second brandy.

  Indeed, it was clear what everyone did think. In fact, it explained all those uneasy glances from the other gents in the club and all those women who were not at home to him this morning.

  He shuddered, actually shuddered, to think of the conversations currently raging in drawing rooms all over town. Roxbury took another long swallow, and damn if that didn’t burn like nothing else.

  Having just consumed two or three brandies within the space of five or six minutes, Roxbury could not see straight or focus on the ramifications of this salacious, malicious lie. That ultimatum . . . marriage or poverty . . . with a man? Or a woman?

  One thing was certain: these things were not compatible, and they were not favorable.

  How was he supposed to marry when no one was at home to him? How was he supposed to maintain his livelihood if his funds were cut off?

  Even with all that alcohol muddling his mind and burning his gut, Roxbury knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was bad. This was the sort of scandal one never quite recovered from.

  The stench of it would stay with him. Years from now—decades, even—whispers of this would follow in his wake, from club to ballroom and everywhere in between. He would not care so much, were it not for that ultimatum and a lifetime of poverty staring him in the face.

  Roxbury set down the paper and Inchbald left the bottle beside it.

  “I know it was a woman,” Brandon said.

  “But you do not doubt that it was me,” Roxbury replied.

  “I know you,” his friend said. They’d been friends since Eton, where Roxbury’s elder brother, Edward, had introduced them both to drinking, women, and wagering. At Eton, Roxbury had seduced every e
ligible female within a ten-mile radius. At university, he was notorious. There was no stopping him when he hit the ton.

  Brandon had a point. Simon was well known for his romantic exploits, so it was believable that he would be caught in a compromising position. In fact, Roxbury was a legendary rake who was famously known to carry on affairs and intrigues with half of the women of the ton and they thought he was dallying with a man?

  It was laughable. So Roxbury laughed.

  He laughed long, hard, and doubled over in his seat, attracting even more uncomfortable and irritable looks. Brandon lifted his brow curiously and had a sip of his brandy.

  “What, exactly, is so humorous about this situation?” Brandon asked.

  “No one can possibly believe that story—not when dozens, hundreds, thousands of women could come forward and vouch for me,” Roxbury pointed out. Perhaps not thousands but many, many women had firsthand knowledge of his abiding love and devotion to women and the female form.

  “I hate to say it, Roxbury, but most of those women are married, and I daresay not one would risk her reputation to vouch for you.”

  Brandon was a stickler for facts, truths, honesty, and all those things. The burning feeling of rage, remorse, and panic in Simon’s gut intensified.

  “They weren’t all married,” he pointed out.

  “Your reputation in the ton is not going to be saved by the word of women of negotiable affection,” Brandon correctly and lamentably stated. Roxbury scowled because his friend was right—the word of an actress, or an opera singer or a demimonde darling was not going to carry much weight with the ton.

  “There were some widows,” he added. He did enjoy those women who were determined to enjoy what one of them had termed her “hard-earned freedom.”

  “They need their reputation, Roxbury. No one will confess to an affair with a man of questionable proclivities.”

  “Bloody hell,” Roxbury swore, but the curse was insufficient. If there was no way to defuse this rumor . . . If no one would come forward to his defense . . .

  It would be impossible to take a wife, particularly if this morning’s rejected social calls were any indication. And if that failed, he was looking at a life of living on credit and dodging debtor’s prison. His father, it should be noted, was in remarkably good health so his inheritance was far off indeed, not that he wished the man dead.

  “I wouldn’t worry. It should all be forgotten eventually,” Brandon said casually, sipping his drink.

  “I don’t have the time,” Roxbury said tightly. There was that ultimatum, and the clock was ticking. Granted, he’d just declared to hell with it. But that was when he had a choice and now that had been taken from him.

  A life of leisure had been secure an hour ago. Now, he hadn’t a prayer of finding a wife, and he could kiss his fortune goodbye, too.

  Roxbury finished the brandy in his glass and then took a swig straight from the bottle. Life as he knew it was over. It was a sudden death, and he was reeling in shock, denial, regret, and bone-deep terror at what the future would bring.

  And anger, too, because he was powerless to do anything. Marriage was impossible, and a refusal to comply meant little when he lacked the option of agreement. Of course, agreeing to his father’s demands was something he didn’t ever want to do, but the point of remaining a bachelor was to enjoy legions of beautiful women who probably would not have him now. And then he would be poor, too. Poor and alone.

  He wondered if the earl had tried this stunt before, with Edward, and if that had been what sent him off to the navy and off to his death. If anyone thought Roxbury was a hellion . . . then they’d never met his elder brother.

  Roxbury took another sip of his drink, silently cursing this impossible situation.

  “By God, if it weren’t for this damned column, all the debutantes and their mothers would be scheming to have me!”

  “You have a high opinion of yourself,” Brandon said.

  “It’s the truth and you know it, and it’s not about me but my title, my fortune, and, well, I have been called devilishly handsome. Thank God for that. There’s nothing worse than an impoverished lord, except for an ugly one.”

  “Roxbury, you are insufferable.”

  “Bloody hell, I’m going to be poor. When the old man delivered that ultimatum I never thought—”

  Brandon merely took a modest sip of his drink. “What ultimatum?” he asked.

  Roxbury explained. And then he lamented.

  “I don’t even have a choice, or a chance now! All because of a damned newspaper story! All because of that petty, irksome busybody who calls herself the Lady of Distinction! My God, if ever a title was unjustified! With just a few lines of moveable type she has annihilated my prospects, destroyed my future, and sentenced me to a life of poverty!”

  “I’m sure someone will have you,” Brandon said. “There is always Lady Hortensia Reeves.”

  Lady Hortensia Reeves left much to be desired. Miss Reeves was an agreeable woman; she was also firmly on the shelf, and a very proud collector of all sorts of items from embroidery to stamps, leaves, insects, and other rubbish. Apparently it was all neatly labeled and catalogued, so she was not some run-of-the-mill hoarder but a devoted hobbyist. Her other great interest was him, and her infatuation with him was quite painfully obvious.

  Needless to say, Roxbury wanted to marry almost anyone else more than he did Lady Hortensia Reeves. While he did not want to marry at all, he definitely did not want to bind himself to just anyone if he had to take a wife. But that was all a moot point because the question of his marriage was now out of his hands and crushed by The London Weekly’s Lady of “Distinction.”

  Roxbury took another long swallow of brandy straight from the bottle. He scowled at the older, stodgier lords that frowned in disapproval at him.

  “Really, it is utterly unconscionable what she has done,” Roxbury carried on. “It’s thoughtless, inconsiderate, unchristian, and damned and downright wrong! This is my life at stake! My choices! My name. My honor.”

  Roxbury stood suddenly, sending his chair tumbling backward and careening across the floor.

  All eyes were upon him. With his hazy, drunken vision he saw the familiar faces of Lord Derby; Biddulph; that old dandy, Lord Walpole; Earl of Selborne’s heir and a few others. With all their attention fixed upon him, Roxbury felt that he ought to make a statement. And so, with a nod of his noble head and a sweeping wave of his arm he grandly informed his peers:

  “Gentlemen, you are all safe from my advances, though your wives are not.”

  The Lady of Distinction was not the only gossip in town. There was another gossip columnist on the prowl in London. His column had been printed in The London Times for forty years now. Alternately feared, reviled, celebrated, and adored, he was the archrival to the Lady of Distinction and an eternal man of mystery. In all of those forty years, for all the thousands of attempts to guess or discover his identity, no one had succeeded. He was known as The Man About Town, but that was all anyone knew of him.

  With her story on Roxbury and his secret male lover, the upstart at The Weekly had won this week. It was all anyone spoke about in the clubs, or drawing rooms, or ballrooms or gaming hells. One by one, they’d raise their brows and lower their voices: Have you heard the latest about Lord Roxbury?

  The Man About Town was immensely vexed that he’d stayed in the dressing rooms the other night instead of lurking around backstage. But what could he say? There were dozens of ladies in various states of undress.

  He pulled on his cigar; his course was clear. He’d need to find Roxbury’s lover, and he’d need to figure out whom that damned Lady of Distinction was.

  But in the meantime, on the other side of the room, The Man About Town bit back a laugh at Roxbury’s drunken declaration. Naturally, he’d seen and heard a lot in his time, and it took much to amuse him these days. With Roxbury, the latest “Fashionable Intelligence,” and the Lady of Distinction, The Man About Town sensed t
hat a fantastic scandal had only just begun.

  Chapter 4

  The offices of The London Weekly

  53 Fleet Street, London

  An infuriating carriage ride in an ill-sprung and stinking hired hack blackened Roxbury’s temper further. After many starts, stops, hollers at insolent pedestrians, and unregulated traffic, the hack turned on Fleet Street and passed by four taverns, a few booksellers, coffeehouses, banks, and other shops before eventually halting before number 53.

  THE LONDON WEEKLY was emblazoned in gold lettering on a massive wooden sign above the door. Subtle it was not.

  Roxbury threw some coins to the driver, stormed across the road and through the door. First, there was arguing, blustering, and a bruising encounter with a gargantuan creature claiming to be the publisher. Roxbury was not fooled. Thanks to hours spent at Gentleman Jack’s, one swift, deliberate blow to the man’s temple cleared Roxbury’s path, though leaving him with a bruised and swollen fist. Thanks to the copious amounts of brandy he had just consumed, he did not register the pain.

  Undeterred, Roxbury charged toward the office door of one Mr. Derek Knightly: editor, publisher, and owner of that wretched rag The London Weekly.

  Presumably Knightly was the man responsible for the nefarious lies of the Lady of Distinction and would be held accountable.

  “Sir!”

  “Stop!” People were shouting at him. He cared not.

  “You can’t go in there!”

  Roxbury did not stop for the likes of those lowlife Grub Street hack writers.

  Before he barged through the door to Knightly’s office, Roxbury thought of nothing but the scandal, the lies, and the destruction to his life. His choices. His name. His honor.

  A hot flaming rage got his blood boiling accordingly. He craved vengeance and would not rest until he had obtained satisfaction.

  And yet, after he opened the door . . .

  Roxbury saw the unexpected: a woman perched upon the corner of the desk.