Page 2 of Nothing But a Rakehell
He moved through the room, squeezing through the throng. They followed in his wake.
Ah, salvation ahead, in the delectable form of Chester’s former mistress. She was a merry widow with notably lax morals and an infamously generous bosom. Keswick bowed low over it and grinned up at her. “Save me, my dear, and I’ll owe you a favor?”
She looked over his shoulder, then raised a brow at him. “Don’t you already owe me five guineas, Keswick?”
“Waltz me away from the determined virgin and I’ll double it,” he vowed. He held out his hand and she took it. They both ignored the protest of the gentleman she’d been talking with.
Keswick pulled her closer than was strictly necessary and swept her onto the dance floor. Her bosom bridged the gap between them and rubbed against his waistcoat. She looked down. “I should charge you extra,” she told him as the flow of the dance took them around to the other side of the room.
“Worth it,” he said with a laugh.
“She’s circling around after us,” his partner reported. “Gracious, she’s a dogged one, isn’t she?”
“In the most disagreeably Machiavellian manner,” he agreed. “Which is why I am going to abandon you once we reach the next corner. The crowd should prevent her from seeing us clearly.”
“I’ll expect your payment tomorrow, Keswick,” she warned.
“You shall have it.” He maneuvered them so that several other couples danced between them and his pursuers, then pulled his partner abruptly off of the dance floor, bent low over her hand, and as she turned away, he used her as cover and slipped behind a thick pedestal set in the corner of the room and surrounded by lush greenery and flowers. Glancing about to be sure no one watched, he ducked down and sat, back propped against the stone, legs tucked up.
Several long moments passed while he breathed deeply. His head still spun a bit. He tipped it back to rest against the pedestal. Behind him, the ball whirled on, but he’d found an oasis of peace. He allowed it to settle into him—until he heard Miss Vernon’s sharp whisper.
“Where has he gone? He cannot have disappeared into thin air.”
Damnation, they were right behind him.
“Perhaps he went outside and around the house to call his carriage,” Miss McNamara suggested with a sigh. “I don’t know why you are pursuing him so vigorously, at any rate. My mama says that Lord Keswick is nothing but a rakehell.”
“I’d chase him around the house for the sake of that square jaw alone, but despite his rakish ways, he has many desirable qualities.”
“Yes. Tens of thousands of them a year, or so I hear. But really, Alice, could you not find someone as rich, but more . . . manageable?”
“Perhaps I could, but you have snapped up the last titled gentleman of the Season who is both doting and doddering,” Miss Vernon retorted. “You will be a widow soon enough after you are a bride. If I have to take on a younger man, then I want one who looks like that.”
Keswick rolled his eyes.
“You will have to behave,” Miss McNamara warned. “At least until you give him an heir.”
“Yes, and it would be so with any titled nobleman. I might as well enjoy what I can of it. But once the succession is assured . . .” she let her words trail away.
“Well, Keswick is unlikely to settle down, despite his marriage vows.”
He bristled. Really! The pair of brazen hussies assumed too much. He would never don a leg shackle. Once he’d finally aged out of his father’s pernicious grip on him, he’d vowed he’d never let anyone hold sway over him again. Particularly not a manipulative jade like this one.
“Of course he won’t. His taste for ladies of low virtue is legendary,” Miss Vernon declared. “But it will only mean that he’ll have no room to reprove me if I have my own . . . fun.”
“I suppose not,” her friend agreed. “But you’ll have to catch him, first.”
“Let’s slip outside, as well,” Miss Vernon suggested. “I have an idea.”
The young ladies wandered off and Keswick let his head drop down onto his knees. What a ghastly girl. He must avoid her completely during the rest of the Season.
The thought exhausted him. Truth to tell, he was already tired.Alwaystired, he should say. Tired of the frenzy of the Season, tired of aimless pleasure-seeking that steadily felt less pleasurable, tired of the same faces day in and out. Except for his friends, of course. He never wearied of them and their unfailing loyalty. He was . . . just . . . so . . . tired.
“Keswick!” someone said in a harsh whisper.
He jerked awake, scrambling away from the pedestal. How long had he been asleep?
“There you are.” Sterne peered down at him through the foliage.
