Page 18 of Making of a Scandal
“But then,” Mr. Burke added, “many young bachelors are simply slow to declare themselves. He feels he has all the time in the world, but you do not wish to wait. You want to be married, and you won’t settle for anyone else.”
“Yes,” she said in a rush, relieved by his reassurance. “Yes, that’s it, exactly.”
She lifted her gaze and found that his eyes were no longer on her. He was staring off across the room, one hand braced at his chin. He was silent for so long that Calliope grew restless. She cleared her throat and took a step toward him, anxiety making her hands shake.
“So … will you do it? I’ll only need you to be my public escort and pay particular attention to me whenever Mr. Lewes is near. It is my hope that it will not take very long to produce the desired result.”
He straightened, reaching into his breast pocket and retrieving a folded sheet of parchment. Unfolding it, he offered it to Calliope. She opened it to discover the contract Mr. Sterling had presented to her last night. Right below her own signature was Mr. Burke’s, surprisingly neat with sloping lines and looping flourishes.
“I will help you snare your husband. I’ll make him so jealous he’ll be tempted to call me out just to remove the competition.”
Calliope folded the contract and handed it back to him. “Thank you. I think it would be ideal for us to be seen together as soon as possible.”
“Of course. I have a stack of unopened invitations to sift through. I’d wager I’ve been invited to the same events as Hastings, which means there will be plenty of opportunities for me to make a spectacle of myself over you. It will not be a great trial, I can assure you.”
A sharp breath burned in her throat at the way his gaze moved over her as he said those last words. His voice had dropped to a soft, seductive purr, and the trajectory of his wandering eyes made her feel as if invisible hands stroked over her body. It was far too easy to recall him pulling her against him, his hands gripping her buttocks and pressing her flush against that hard, male part of him. An odd sensation quivered low in her belly.
“Mr. Burke, I must ask that you refrain from such …”
She didn’t even know how to name what he’d just done; it had been such an imperceptible shift. But he seemed to know exactly what she meant, because he merely smiled. This grin was nothing like the mocking one he’d given her earlier. This one was full and bright, and completely disarming. He took up her hand, raising it to his lips. He placed a chaste kiss on her knuckles, then glanced up at her with those glittering eyes.
“Sorry, goddess … birds must fly, fish must swim. There are some things about me you’re simply going to have to get used to. I’ll send a note this evening with a list of events I’ve been invited to. Do let me know which ones you will attend.”
With that, he dropped her hand and strode from the room, his gait easy and relaxed. Meanwhile, he left her feeling completely unsettled and at odds with herself. Calliope didn’t understand this effect he had on her—the one that made her want to slap his face again and take him to task for his impertinence.
Issuing a labored groan, she sank into the nearest chair, one hand pressed to her roiling belly.
She certainly hoped Mr. Lewes could be coaxed toward the altar sooner rather than later. Calliope didn’t know how much of Dominick Burke she could withstand.
Chapter 3
“News of the arrival of the Earl of H has set London ablaze. The scandalous gentleman of half-Scottish parentage is hardly ever seen in Town … though one need not look very far for the reason for his sudden appearance. A certain red-haired lady of ruined reputation has apparently snared the confirmed bachelor’s attention. Does he intend to make a wife of the hoydenish Lady D … or are his plans of a more scintillating nature?”
The London Gossip, 21 August, 1819
After his successful meeting with Calliope Barrington, Nick promptly returned to his lodgings on Picadilly, his head pounding from the aftereffects of last night’s revel. As he trudged up the stairs of Albany, where he let a suite of bachelor’s rooms, he decided he wasn’t certain whether he was happy about his new arrangement. On one hand, the amount he was being paid to play a doting suitor was more than he’d ever earned warming the beds of other ladies. However, the assignment came with an annoying drawback—one he knew Benedict would insist was of no consequence. For a man with Nick’s healthy appetite, it was a problem of catastrophic proportions.
His new keeper was the most alluring woman he’d ever laid eyes on, and he couldn’t lay a hand on her—at least, not in the way he wanted. She’d been just as stunning in the bright light of the drawing room as she had in the dim interior of Benedict’s office—perhaps even more so. With the rays of the sun shining through the windows he’d had a better look at that thick, dark hair, gleaming with an almost bluish tint. He’d studied her mesmerizing face, full lips, and arching black eyebrows. Her figure was lithe and supple, her breasts just big enough to fill his hands, and the flare of her hips creating a promising outline through her skirts.
He supposed he could always take his relief with whores. Benedict had waylaid Nick’s plans last night, and he hadn’t finished what he’d started with the bit of skirt at the gaming hell.
He issued a labored sigh as he stumbled through the open door of his bedchamber, and told himself to have done with this arrangement as soon as possible. While it might be in his best interest financially to drag the matter out for months, Nick wasn’t one for self-denial, and reckoned spending so much time around a woman he lusted after but couldn’t take to bed would be akin to staring into a bakery window with a quivering belly and empty pockets. Why torture himself needlessly?
Plopping into the chair before his cluttered desk, he pushed a few items aside to find the ignored stack of invitations. He typically only attended dinner parties—the better to enjoy the talents of someone else’s cook. But now, he would have to consider them all. The sooner he made the social rounds with Calliope on his arm, the sooner he could shove her into the arms of her would-be groom and move on to his next real conquest.
“You were up and about earlier than I expected today, sir.”
Nick glanced up from the open envelope in his hands to find his valet and servant of all work, Thorpe, entering with a silver tray. On it sat a glass containing a familiar-looking potion.
“Thorpe, you are a Godsend,” he muttered, accepting the man’s tried and true concoction for curing the headache and nausea caused by too much drink. “And, I assure you, if it weren’t entirely necessary, I would still be snoring into my pillow.”
He wrinkled his nose at the odor of Thorpe’s mysterious brew, but then forced it down in a few swallows.
“You received a message while you were out.”
Thorpe balanced the tray in one hand and reached into his coat, retrieving a folded slip of paper sealed with red wax. Nick recognized the crest of his father and suppressed a groan. Whatever the earl wanted, it couldn’t be good.
Nick wanted nothing more than to shed his clothes and fall into bed until he no longer felt as if the world tilted under his feet, but there was work to be done. He ignored his father’s missive in favor of the invitations—his own little form of spite, even if the man wasn’t here to see it.
