Lady Claire Is All That Page 9

  Mowbray took a sip of ale while the speaker paused dramatically.

  “Well, come on, then, tell us,” someone said, impatient.

  “Lady Claire Cavendish.”

  Mowbray spit out his ale. Sprayed it all over the damned table.

  “Bloody hell, Mowbray! What the devil?”

  His first thought: this did not bode well for winning his wager. This was no mere social call. If Lady Claire were accompanying Fox to a boxing match, it indicated a certain level of intimacy and friendship had developed between them, which signified that Fox was in a position to change her, to make her popular, to win.

  Or not.

  His second thought: this might be a lucky bit of information to have at his fingertips. If word got out that Lady Claire was in attendance at a rough and tumble event like the Kearney versus Barkley match, it certainly wouldn’t help her reputation as an odd and unconventional lady who struggled to fit in with all the other young women of society. He decided to file this information away for potential future use.

  Mowbray took a long swallow of his ale, draining the glass. When he looked up, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  Arabella Vaughn. That radiant beauty and society darling was here, among the brutes in the Bull and Bear after a boxing match. She looked like an angel out of place on earth. Mowbray watched, stunned, as she surveyed the room anxiously. When her gaze fell on him, her eyes lit up.

  His heart swelled.

  His heart pounded as she crossed the room toward him, threading her way through slack-jawed men, shocked and awed at the angel in their midst. She was here, she was coming to him. He must be drunk. Or dreaming.

  “Mowbray. I cannot tell you how happy I am to see a friendly face,” she said, smiling. But there was a sadness in her eyes he’d never seen before.

  “Miss Vaughn, what are you doing here? Are you alone?”

  Was she still Miss Vaughn? He didn’t know. She didn’t correct him.

  “My maid is about somewhere. So is Lucien.”

  She glanced over her shoulder, and he followed her gaze. Famed London actor Lucien Kemble was demonstrating his ability to down multiple pints of ale in quick succession as a rousing crowd cheered him on.

  Beer dripped down his chin, onto his clothes.

  He slammed the mug down and roared and the crowd cheered.

  Arabella looked pained, then looked away.

  “You’re a long way off from Gretna Green,” he said. “Either that was a quick trip or . . .”

  Or she hadn’t wed Lucien Kemble after all. Mowbray’s mind reeled with the implications of that possibility.

  “We are on our way.” She said this forcefully, as if she could make it true. “And true love is forever, right? What is one more stop here or there along the way?” Here, she forced a lilting laugh and Mowbray remembered hearing the genuine version in happier times. “He wanted to see the fight.”

  But she couldn’t keep up the show for long. Quickly, she added in a low voice, “I suppose word is out about us.”

  “You know how the ton loves to gossip,” Mowbray said, reluctantly confirming her worst suspicions. “And the papers love nothing more than to report on the scandals of beautiful young ladies.”

  “Well, there goes my hope that my absence had been unremarked upon, perhaps allowing me to slip back into society and claim I had been visiting an aunt in Bath.”

  She heaved a sigh and batted her dark lashes quickly, as if trying to keep tears from falling from her big, blue eyes. This was a version of Arabella Vaughn that Mowbray had never seen: she was vulnerable, remorseful, and no longer at the top of the world.

  She had never needed him or anyone before—not with her beauty, her dowry, her family connections, her influential friends. But now, in the Bull and Bear, she was a fallen angel looking for a savior, or at least a protector.

  Mowbray would be that man for her.

  This was his chance to woo her, to win her, to redeem her.

  “How can I help you, Arabella?”

  “I don’t think you can. I don’t think anyone can. I have made a foolish choice that I shall have to live with for the rest of my life.” She blinked hard, fighting the tears. She bit that bee-sting mouth that he had once kissed. “Don’t you dare tell anyone I ever said that.”

  “Your secrets are safe with me. You are safe with me. I promise.”

  “Thank you, Mowbray. You’ve always been a good friend.”

  Friend. Was there a worse word for a man in his position?

  Never mind that now, there was an opportunity here. He just had to seize it. He could continue his new winning streak. He could be her savior. He could be the one who got the girl.

  “Would you like to return to society?”

  “It’s a moot point, isn’t it? I’d never be welcomed after this—” She waved at Lucien, now doing an embarrassing improvisational jig to the musical stylings of an inebriated fiddler. “I must face the facts: I am ruined and shall no longer be welcomed in society. The best I can hope for now is to wed Lucien.” She made a face. “That is, unless Fox were to take me back.”

  Mowbray swallowed hard. Fox. Always Fox.

  But not today, and not any longer, if Mowbray could help it. Not that Arabella needed to know that now. First, he would earn her trust and help her return to London. When she saw that Fox had taken up with Lady Claire, perhaps she’d turn to her savior, Mowbray, for consolation.

  “Perhaps that’s not impossible,” he said. “Perhaps I can help.”

  “Will you?” Her eyes brightened. Her lips upturned into a smile.

  “Of course,” Mowbray promised. And he meant it.

  “But why would you help me? Especially now? And after we . . . ?”

  After they courted and kissed and she jilted him for his friend, whom she later jilted? It was a fair question. Though he had his reasons, Mowbray knew better than to share them, so he simply said, “I want you to be happy,” even though it wasn’t that simple at all.

  Chapter 8

  Arabella Vaughn and renowned London actor Lucien Kemble were sighted at the Kearney-Barkley boxing match, which is of note since it is not exactly en route to Gretna Green, where they are assumed to be traveling. If a young woman is going to run off with a man, the least she must do is marry him.

  —Fashionable Intelligence, The London Weekly

  A Royal Society meeting at the home of the Duke of Ashbrooke

  On Tuesday, just before two o’clock, Lord Fox collected Lady Claire and her chaperone, Miss Green, for the exciting prospect of a gathering of Royal Society members at the Duke of Ashbrooke’s residence.

  Exciting being a relative term.

  But Fox found he was in a state—he was anxious to determine if taking her to the boxing match had been a good idea or a terrible one. But mostly he was just keen to see Lady Claire.

  She was not at all like any other women he’d known—she wasn’t fussy, delicate, or simpering. She was sharp and smart, so self-assured and unbowed by him. He was starting to like her, he found, but he hadn’t forgotten he had to transform her into something more acceptable to society. More delicate. More simpering.

  He noticed that she wore a perfectly fine gown—the duchess would hardly let her out in anything less—but she wore it with such little care. A button near her wrist was undone, her shawl was awkwardly draped, and her hair was simply and severely pulled back and restrained, as if she ran out of patience with having it done. Her glasses were perched on her nose.

  “The duchess is hardly encouraging of my studies,” Claire was saying in the carriage. “But then I mentioned we were meeting with Ashbrooke . . .”

  “A duke trumps everything,” Miss Green said. “Apologies, my lord.”

  “No offense is taken. Poor me, I am only a marquess.”

  “Well, as an American I couldn’t care less about any of this business with titles.” Then, changing the subject, she said, “By now you must be familiar with Ashbrooke’s work on the analyt
ical engine.”

  “No, but I feel like I am about to be,” Fox said. Miss Green stifled a laugh.

  Lady Claire was already chattering about her idea for the analytical engine—of course he didn’t comprehend a word of it. Miss Green turned to look out the window and Fox did his best why-yes-I-am-paying-attention-to-you expression. Meanwhile, he stole glances at her mouth. And lower, at her breasts.

  Lady Claire did have a nice figure.

  She didn’t flaunt it, which may have been why he and the rest of the gentlemen of the ton hadn’t exactly noticed. Arabella had certainly known she had an excellent figure and made sure that everyone knew it by the dresses she wore and the poses she adopted.

  Fox felt he probably ought to persuade Lady Claire to wear more revealing dresses and stand around in positions that showed her figure to its best advantage. But then, strangely, he didn’t care for the idea of anyone else seeing her thusly.

  If he were a man prone to deep thought, particularly on the subject of emotions and women, this might have concerned him. As it was, it did not. Yet.

  Fox continued to notice her fine figure while the ladies took tea with the Duchess of Ashbrooke. They seemed to get along exceedingly well. And then Lady Claire and he traveled down a vast corridor to the room where the Royal Society of People Who Were Immune from Death by Boredom of Numbers were gathered around a small machine in the center of the room.

  “This is the prototype of the difference engine, which, as you know, was recently completed,” Ashbrooke explained. Fox had vague recollections of talk of its debut at the Great Exhibition recently.

  While the others conversed, Fox, feeling restless, sauntered about the room, looking at things—books, globes, little automatons, biological specimens—to distract him from listening to the conversation he didn’t understand or to avoid thinking about why he was even subjecting himself to this.

  Because Arabella had jilted him (by any definition, a catch) to run off with an actor (by any definition, not a catch) and in doing so had greatly disturbed his understanding of the world and his place in it.

  But oddly enough, Fox hadn’t thought of Arabella in quite some time now, other than a passing comparison of her to Lady Claire, who surprisingly came out higher in his estimation.

  Not being a man of deep thinking or emotional soul searching, Fox did not delve into what that might suggest about how much he had truly loved Arabella, or how suited they really were, or what this all might mean for his feelings toward Lady Claire. He was too focused on the wager.

  Fox was also here—poking around in Ashbrooke’s study while things he didn’t understand were discussed—because of Mowbray.

  Fox hadn’t seen his friend in days, but he couldn’t erase the image of Mowbray’s smirk at the musicale. You can’t woo her. You’re not smart enough. You’re nothing without Arabella and I’ll unmask you as a fraud before the entire haute ton. That’s what his smirk said. That’s what Fox rebelled against—people not believing in him. Not believing in himself. Not being able to see another role for himself other than winner.

  He and Mowbray had always been competitive—from rowing races at Eton, to seducing women at Oxford (instead of attending classes, naturally), to whatever pursuit came their way as adults—but it had always been friendly.

  But something seemed to have changed.

  Fox didn’t care to delve into whether this change in the tenor of their friendship was real or imagined, or what it might be owing to, or what he ought to do about it. That was something best done alone with brandy, if at all.

  Fox resumed perusing the shelves. Ashbrooke had quite a collection of books and other little curiosities. He picked up one little automaton—a dancing lady—and started to play around with it, trying to get her to move. He was not known for being gentle. Occasionally he forgot his own strength.

  Of course he ended up breaking off a bit of it. Little bits of metal fell to the ground. He swore. Loudly.

  A few heads turned in his direction, saw nothing of note, and then carried on with their discussion. Claire gave him A Look.

  And then, a distraction. Some little pipsqueak burst into the room, breathing heavily from the exertions of walking at a brisk pace down the hall. The kind of activity, it had to be noted, that wouldn’t get Fox winded in the slightest.

  “Apologies for my tardiness,” he said breathlessly. He shuffled the folio he held in his hands and papers drifted out and fell to the floor.

  Fox knew the type: pale, small, bespectacled, and underdeveloped from sitting around with books and papers all day, rarely venturing into the sunlight or exerting their limbs. Fox’s opposite.

  “How good to see you,” Ashbrooke said, greeting the latecomer. “Though you missed the most fascinating insights from our esteemed guest today. Lady Claire Cavendish, may I present Mr. Benedict Williams?”

  Fox leaned against a bookshelf and smirked while Williams turned red when presented with a human of the female persuasion.

  “Lady Claire, I have heard great things about you and I was much impressed with your questions at the recent lecture,” Mr. Williams said, bowing.

  “Mr. Williams is the author of the paper on polynomial equations,” Ashbrooke explained.

  “Oh, that was a brilliant article. The way you built on the groundwork of our predecessors was remarkable,” Lady Claire started to gush. “I do have some questions for you—”

  “It would be my pleasure to discuss them at length with you,” this Williams fellow said, and it was Claire’s turn to blush.

  Fox coughed, loudly, reminding everyone of his existence.

  “You know everyone else, of course,” Ashbrooke said. “But I must also introduce you to my friend Lord Fox.”

  Mr. Benedict Williams nodded briefly and his head swiveled completely and immediately back to Lady Claire. And really, how could he not? Finally, a young, attractive woman who shared his interests and might actually be interested in him.

  Fox saw too clearly how this would play out. Williams was already a goner. Lady Claire’s brain would become overexcited by his talk of numerical this and polynomial that. Her passion for discussing math and equations would be confused as passion for the little man himself. She’d find herself wed in a marriage of minds that would not make for a happy marriage between the sheets.

  Women who were not happy between the sheets were not truly happy, in Fox’s opinion.

  But that was beside the point. A courtship with a wheezy academic like Williams would hardly enhance her popularity with the ton, which meant he could kiss his dog and pride goodbye if they continued to make eyes at each other and have long, hard, and intimate conversations about polynomial equations.

  Fox would have to remind her that there was more to life—more to her—than numbers and logic. Now bored, anxious, and restless, he waited for the first opportunity to awaken Lady Claire’s passion. It presented itself shortly, though by God it felt like an eternity.

  A short while later, in the gallery

  Finally, finally, finally the meeting concluded and the participants dispersed and Fox had officially survived a few more hours of listening to discussions of advanced mathematics. The things he did for Lady Claire . . .

  The introduction of Williams was an annoyance, but Fox had a plan to make Claire forget all about him: he would kiss her until she was senseless. This plan excited him.

  “That was just brilliant,” Claire gushed as they strolled through the corridor on their way back to the foyer, where they would find Miss Green for the carriage ride back to Durham House. “I cannot believe I had the opportunity to debate with Ashbrooke himself! Not to mention all the others, particularly Mr. Williams. He has an exceptional mind.”

  “You’re quite pretty when your cheeks are pink with excitement like that,” Fox said. “And your eyes are bright. They sparkle.”

  “Thank you. I hope you weren’t too bored.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Really? Even I thought Mr. Willi
ams went on a bit too long—” me, too “—about such a basic principle.” Not me, too.

  “Have you ever seen Ashbrooke’s gallery?” Fox asked, changing the subject. “We fence here, though he has also displayed some portraits of dead relatives. As one must do, somewhere about the house.”

  “I have not—this is my first time at his home, although he has invited me to return and collaborate with him and Mr. Williams on a paper explaining his work and its significance. I can hardly wait to begin. Back home I could only dream of opportunities like this.”

  “Hmm,” Fox murmured. He found what he hoped was the right door, tried the knob, and the door swung open to reveal the room he sought.

  It was blessedly and wonderfully empty and dimly lit. Late-afternoon light streamed through windows at the far end, but there was no other illumination. It would be difficult to fully appreciate the portraits of Ashbrooke’s dead relatives in such a light; fortunately, Fox had no intention of doing so.

  “Ah, here we go.” Fox pushed the door open and stepped aside.

  Lady Claire swished in past him, her skirts grazing his boots.

  In truth, Fox did know some math—the kind a man used in real life.

  A brush of hands + a quick backward glance + a coy smile – an audience * heart pounding desire = a kiss.

  He wasn’t sure who started it.

  He already knew he wasn’t going to end it.

  Fox barely had a moment to pretend to show her a statue or a portrait or some other bit of art when she had whirled around to face him instead.

  Her hand touched on his sleeve. She had reached out to him, and that meant everything.

  The thing about the spectacles she wore is that they magnified things, like the desire in her eyes. It was the invitation he needed and badly wanted.

  Fox closed the distance.

  His mouth found hers, or hers found his, and the slow burn began. Tentative at first before desire made them bold. The kiss deepened.