Page 9 of Unmasked by the Marquess
“I’m simply bringing you up to snuff. I haven’t told you anything the rest of London doesn’t already know.” He took a long sip. “My father was quite infamous,” he added grimly.
He was serious-minded, this hard-featured aristocrat. It wasn’t simple arrogance that made him look down his nose at others, but full-blown moral rectitude. Charity would have bet that he was positively up to his ears in self-reproach too. All that rot ought to have gone out of style with the Crusades, as far as Charity cared.
“I don’t hold with gambling,” was all she said. And it was true, insofar as she felt sick at the thought of gambling away money that didn’t belong to her. If she had her own money—well, that was never going to happen, was it?
They were so near, inches away from one another, that they could keep their voices quite low. Charity wasn’t sure if she could actually feel the heat coming off his body or if her own body was playing tricks on her. All it would take would be for her to shift the smallest margin to the side and their hips would be touching, their boots rubbing against one another’s.
At that moment Pembroke slung an arm across the back of the settee. She could feel the fine wool of his coat brushing against the hairs on the back of her head. Paralyzed by awareness, she couldn’t decide whether to sit up straighter to free herself from the closeness, or to lean back into his arm.
It was only a companionable touch, one man to another. Men were always jostling and backslapping, treating one another with casual friendliness like so many puppies. She had participated in this easy camaraderie time and again, but there was nothing casual or easy about being near Lord Pembroke. Not only because of his rank and power, but because she wanted him, and she couldn’t disregard the sparks of warmth that seemed to travel from his body to hers.
This was the hard part of being a man. Six years ago, when she first put on Robbie’s taken-in clothes, she had felt silly, like she was in a costume. That had lasted all of five minutes, and then she felt righter than she had in her entire life. She wassupposedto be wearing breeches and top boots, riding jackets and cravats. Her hair was meant to be cropped.
When she absolutely had to dress as a woman—those visits home from Cambridge when Robbie was still alive—she usually borrowed one of Louisa’s shabbiest and most faded gowns. She felt like a mummer, like an actor in a farce, and longed for the next chance she’d have to resume her breeches and waistcoats.
But this proximity to a man she desired was very hard to manage. And there was no denying that she did desire Lord Pembroke, despite all his arrogance and hauteur. Or, hell, maybe because of it. He was just so bloody sure of himself, of his place in the world. And why shouldn’t he be?
It was useless to think of him in that way, though. She had had her share of women—and men, for that matter—interested in her, but what was she supposed to do about it when they were under a misapprehension about who and what she truly was? They thought they were attracted to a young country squire, not a former housemaid dressed in her dead master’s castoffs.
She sighed, an action that caused her to tilt back in her seat and accidentally settle against Pembroke’s arm. She stilled, wondering if he would pull his arm away. Instead she felt his fingers in her hair.
“You really ought to do something about your hair,” he said softly, and she thought she could actually feel the vibration of his voice where his hand touched her. “It’s too long by half.” He fiddled with the ends, where her hair curled a bit around her collar.
She turned her head toward him, not enough to dislodge his hand, but enough so she could gauge whether his expression was amused or reproachful.
It was neither. His eyes were narrowed, his mouth curved up slightly in the faintly indulgent expression he seemed to adopt only when addressing her. He looked...
He looked like he wanted to touch her as much as she wanted to be touched. God, she was lonely. And a little bit drunk. Even the friendly, sisterly touches she had used to share with Louisa were now strange and rare, hampered by the civilities of London society. She wanted to feel another person’s hands on her.
No, she wasn’t being quite honest with herself. She wanted to feel this man’s hands on her.
She took another sip of brandy and watched as Pembroke did the same, his hand still on her head, his eyes never leaving her face. He wanted her. Lord help her, but she wouldn’t have guessed Pembroke to be that sort of fellow. Not that she cared one way or another, except that it made her current situation a good deal more difficult.
And more interesting.
His hand slid into her hair, massaging the back of her scalp. She suppressed a groan of pleasure. Now, why in hell did it feel so good when other people rubbed one’s head and so pointless when one did it oneself? But this felt more than good. She felt like she needed a bucket of water dumped over her, but still she couldn’t summon up the self-control to pull away, to come up with any excuse to leave this settee, to return home, anything.
“Robert,” he said in that low, intimate tone. “Odd, but you don’t seem like a Robert. What do they call you at home?”
Now, how could she answer that? Robbie hadn’t seemed like a Robert either, which was why everyone had called him Robbie. “At school they called me Selby,” she answered truthfully. “Louisa calls me all manner of things.” This, too, was true.
“Hmm,” he murmured, his hand momentarily still on her head. “Robin. That’s what I’ll call you.”
“Like Queen Elizabeth’s Robin,” she commented, only realizing that comparing herself to a queen’s supposed lover was not perhaps quite the thing.
That must have brought him to his senses, because he removed his hand and said, “Indeed,” in a much less intimate tone. “Robin suits you, though. Much less serious than Robert.”
She couldn’t disagree, and she liked the idea of having a name that hadn’t belonged to poor Robbie nor been impersonally bestowed on her by the vicar’s wife. Charity Church, for heaven’s sake; it was more a designation of origin than a proper name.
The card game broke up, and they were joined by a handful of gentlemen. Some of them Charity knew either by name or face from Cambridge, but the rest seemed to take her presence at White’s or her proximity to Pembroke as a sufficient recommendation, proof enough that she was part of their world.
They were talking about a friend of theirs, somebody Charity had never met, so she was able to drink her brandy and observe the gentlemen without anybody paying her much attention.
Well, strictly speaking, she was observing only Pembroke.
He had a bit of dark stubble on his jaw. She would have figured him for the type of man to appear only clean shaven in public. Or perhaps his beard simply grew in too fast to avoid stubble by this time of night. Surely that notion shouldn’t make her feel suffused with warmth. There was, after all, nothing so remarkable in a beard. But she wanted to reach out and feel its coarseness under her fingertips.
His hair appeared very dark in the dim light of the club, the strands of silver only the faintest sparkle. His spectacles must have been in his pocket. Indeed, when she let her gaze roam lower, she thought she could see their shape beneath the fine wool of his coat. She could also make out the outline of lean muscles.
