Page 26 of Cupid Comes to Little Valentine

Kirby rolled his eyes but drew back the bedcovers. “Hop in then. I’ll send Honeywell and Mr Chivers up the back stairs once they’re here. In the meantime, I’ll tell Edwin you’re sleeping, and you’ve had a dreadful night, so I won’t wake you yet. He’ll just have to kick his heels.”

“Right you are,” Beau said, eager for this farce to be over so he could get back to his life.

Climbing into the bed, he lay down with a sigh and stared up at the ceiling, trying to arrange himself in the pose of a man about to breathe his last. Uncertain what that might be, he figured it probably wasn’t much different from a fellow passed out dead drunk, and he could pull that off without much difficulty.

Clementine glanced up from riddle she was working on just as her father rushed past the open door to the study. He looked to be in a terrible hurry.

“Papa?” she called, wondering if someone was dying, for that was the only thing that usually sent him out with such haste.

“Beaumarsh’s cousin has arrived!” he called as he tugged the front door open.

“Oh! Wait for me,” Clementine exclaimed, abandoning the word game without a second thought. Snatching her bonnet from hall stand where she had left it, she unhooked her spencer from the peg and ran after her father. Sticking the bonnet haphazardly on her head and shoving one arm into the coat as she ran, she turned to her father. “You can’t be thinking of leaving me out of this. It was my plan!”

“Fine, fine, but we must make haste,” the reverend said, moving with remarkable speed for a man of his years and generous girth.

By the time they reached The Mermaid’s Tale, even Clementine was pink-cheeked as the afternoon sun made such strenuous effort hard work. Happily, Mr Kirby awaited them at the side entrance.

“Figured you’d be here too,” he said sagely, not arguing about Clementine’s presence and merely ushering them up the back stairs and into Beau’s bedroom.

Clementine made haste at Kirby’s urging but came to a grinding halt just inside the room as she got her first glimpse of the death-bed scene.

Beau lay with his head turned to one side, his eyes closed, arms laid carelessly upon the bedclothes as if moving them were too much effort. The room was dark, with only a chink of light from the not quite shut curtains illuminating his tableau. They moved in the breeze from an open window and, as the flickering shadows played with his finely chiselled features, he appeared pale and poetically tragic, a romantic figure of dissipation and a warning of the cost of licentiousness. The nightshirt he wore was open at the throat, showing a considerable expanse of hard, toned muscle and an intriguing scattering of dark golden hair.

Despite understanding the urgency of the situation, Clementine could not move, too fascinated by the scene before her. Beau Beaumarsh, dressed up in his immaculate best, was exciting and too handsome for his own good, but like this… like this he was some wicked god of wine and revelry, inviting her to sin with him. Heaven above, but he was beautiful.

Suddenly, as if feeling the weight of her gaze, Lord Beaumarsh’s eyes flicked open, a dazzling flash of blue against the pallor of his skin. Clementine’s breath caught as she gazed back at him, quite riveted and unable to look away. Beaumarsh did not so much as blink but held her gaze as her pulse rocketed. The situation was ridiculous, with her gazing down upon a man of his lordship’s stamp, and him lying in such an abandoned pose upon his bed. She was uncertain if even the presence of her father and a justice of the peace would save her entirely if anyone heard of it.

She didn’t care.

“Come, my dear,” her father urged, taking her arm and tugging her towards the balcony.

Clementine went, unresisting, but did not look away from Beau until Mr Kirby closed the curtains on them with a snap. Finally free of whatever snare she had fallen into, she let out a shaky breath, coming back to her senses in time to realise she was sharing the tiny balcony not only with her father, but Mr Chivers.

“Good afternoon, sir,” she said politely, only to be hushed by Chivers with some force.

She exchanged a glance with her father, whose lips twitched. Chivers had always been rather officious, and no doubt strongly disapproved of her presence. Still, he was an honourable fellow, and she believed she could trust him to hold his tongue about her being here. Certainly, he would do so for her father’s sake.

The sun beat down upon them and Clementine wished she had brought a fan, belatedly looking around and realising their position put them in full view of the street below. Happily, no one was around for the moment, and she prayed it stayed that way and that Lord Beaumarsh’s dreadful cousin would hurry.

Just as she’d had the thought, she heard the door open and close, and Kirby speaking in hushed tones.

“I must beg you not to fatigue him too greatly,” Kirby said morosely. “He’s not got much longer, I reckon, but I’ll not have you upsetting him in his last hours.”

“Yes, yes, fine,” Mr Cavendish said, sounding all too impatient to step into his cousin’s shoes.

Clementine gritted her teeth, deciding in that moment she loathed the man, and settled in to listen.

Beau heard his cousin’s voice, snappish and irritable as always, and experienced a sudden surge of gratitude towards Miss Honeywell for forcing him to listen to her mad plan. As foolish as he felt, he knew it would be worth it the moment Edwin incriminated himself. Finally, he would be free of the man’s insidious presence in his life, and the constant threat of sabotage to his carriage, or his horse, or having some noxious potion added to his wine.

His cousin had decided the title, the money, and the land were his when Beau was still a child. Yet things had changed, and where his previous attempts had been more opportunistic, this had been planned and executed with cold-blooded cunning. Edwin was getting desperate, and he would stop at nothing to get his hands on what he considered his due.

Beau kept still, forcing his breathing to remain shallow as he heard his cousin draw a chair up beside the bed.

“Sylvester?”

It took considerable effort to stop the cynical smile curving over Beau’s mouth as Edwin addressed him. Edwin had never called him by his title, let alone Beau, for he envied his ownership of the honorific too deeply.

Beau allowed his eyes to flicker open and turned his head a fraction. “Edwin?” he rasped, his voice sounding frail and quavery. Really, he was rather good at this. Perhaps he should have tried his hand at acting in his misspent youth. Too late now, sadly, for it would be unbecoming for a man of his years. Still, this was an opportunity not to be missed.