Page 14 of The Danger of Desire
“You, too,” Delia said as she walked her to the door. “And put your mind at ease about Lord Knightford. Even if I wanted to marry him—and I assure you, I do not—he would never choose as a wife the daughter of a gambler who once won a sizable estate from a hapless squire.”
An estate on the verge of foreclosure.
But that was about to change. She would make sure that it did.
Four
Warren glanced at the clock at St. George’s. He still had some time before 1:00 a.m., when he meant to be at Lady Pensworth’s town house in Bedford Square. Fortunately it wasn’t far from the club, since he’d have to walk there. The bright streetlamps, seclusion, and exclusivity of the neighborhood would make any carriage stand out like a beacon at midnight, especially a marquess’s.
Besides, he could move about easier on foot. And conveniently, Bedford Square had a large private garden in the center where he could wait. He already had a key for it. He had keys for most of the private gardens in Mayfair. Aside from the fact that he lived in the vicinity, he found it convenient to have keys for when he wished to meet with certain bored wives for a bit of... enjoyment.
But first he wanted to finish his conversation with one of the club’s members about Miss Trevor’s situation. He’d already discovered that she was highly regarded by gentlemen in search of a wife. Some had even courted her. But the woman had dismissed their attentions as firmly as she’d dismissed his less serious ones.
It made no sense. A woman of her situation should be grabbing at any decent suitor who came along. So why wasn’t she? Because she’d fallen for some fortune hunter? She didn’t seem the type to be easily swayed by a smooth talker. And she seemed too practical not to acknowledge the advantages of having a suitor with more connections and more wealth.
Yet her suitors had all been rebuffed, even the important ones.
Including the fellow he was presently speaking with. “She’s very polite about it,” the man said, “but she’s also very clear that she’s taking her time to evaluate her choices.”
On the surface of it, that sounded sensible. But if she were so sensible, why was she meeting some arse in the middle of the night? “Didn’t you find that odd, given her late entry into society?” Warren asked.
“I would have, except I know what happened to her brother. I suspect she’s still grieving him.”
“The brother who died in an accident.”
“If you can call it that.”
That sparked Warren’s interest. “What do you mean?”
The man shrugged. “Supposedly he stumbled off a bridge and drowned while he was drunk. But there have been rumors that it was not an accident. That he jumped.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I imagine it would be for the usual reasons—gambling, financial difficulty of some other kind... a thwarted love affair.”
“Ah.” None of those would enhance a family’s reputation, which would certainly suffer if it was bandied about that their beloved patriarch had killed himself. The scandal would be enormous.
Then again, gossip was often wrong. People were always trying to make more out of something than it might be.
After it became apparent he would learn little else of interest, he walked over to Bedford Square and let himself into the garden with his key.
Now all he had to do was wait.
He pulled out a flask and swigged some brandy. It was quiet here. And dark. Too dark. He didn’t like quietordark places, hadn’t liked them since he was—
Don’t be a sniveling coward, boy. Lords aren’t afraid of the dark. Buck up and be a man.
Fiercely, he thrust the hard words to the back of his mind. He mustn’t think about those nights right now, or his mind would spiral down into the depths and he’d have to escape before he’d accomplished what he’d come here to do.
Instead, he concentrated on the sounds of the outdoors—the carriages in distant streets, the summer crickets chittering in the garden, a frog croaking in the tiny pond. If he had to endure the night alone, he much preferred it be outdoors. At least there he didn’t feel hemmed in. That was crucial.
A new sound came to him—of a door opening—and he looked over the fence. He’d timed matters perfectly. There was that Owen fellow, emerging from the front servant entrance with a young gentleman.
Althoughgentlemanmight be stretching it a bit. Even from here, Warren could tell that the man’s clothes were ill-fitting and not the least fashionable, that he walked hunched over, and that his beaver hat was too large for him. Indeed, the fellow looked more the height and build of a boy than a man.
But where was Miss Trevor? Had he somehow missed the assignation, and her secret suitor was the lad now being ushered out of the house?
No, that made no sense. Why would Miss Trevor meet with a lad beneath her aunt’s very nose? It wasn’t wiseorclever.
