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What was she up to? Three days ago he’d been the happiest man alive. Miss Brightwell had been wrapped in his arms, sighing happily as he rained kisses upon her face. Dear God, she’d been beneath him on this very carpet, moaning in ecstasy as he’d thrust deep inside her. He’d assumed that the giving of her smooth, fragrant, sensual body was her ultimate gift to him. He’d felt like some great, all-powerful God. So what had happened? Had she walked straight from Fenton’s embrace into the path of Lord Quamby, who had made her an offer of marriage she couldn’t refuse?
“Lord Quamby.” The growl came from his very depths. He was vaguely aware that Bramley was at the sideboard helping himself to brandy and, with shaking hands, was trying to replace the glass stopper. Neglecting to consult with his host, or even offer some much-needed fortification, he quickly followed the first shot with another.
“Why have you come to me?” Fenton’s tone was clipped. Calm and reason were slowly returning.
Bramley slammed down the glass tumbler and turned. His lip curled. “Because Lord Quamby is my uncle and I am his heir. He was never supposed to marry. A woman in his bed is laughable, yet that insinuating little baggage has sneaked right under my guard, wrapped my uncle around her little finger and is about to deny me my inheritance. Antoinette told me all about the pair of you. God knows, I’ve seen it in the
way Miss Brightwell looks at you. She loves you! I wanted to stop that but…right now, you’re the only one who can stop her!” In several strides he was across the room, seizing Fenton by the arm and propelling him to the door as he called to Brimble for his Lordship’s coat.
They found a hackney carriage, though with the rain and traffic congestion of the fashionable hour it would have been quicker to walk.
The only one who can stop her?
Fenton hunched over in the shabby seat, his mind in turmoil. Three days ago he’d arrogantly thought he held the upper hand. Pain mocked him while gleefully lancing his vulnerable heart. He didn’t understand any of it. He’d thought she loved him. Bramley said she did.
Clearly, though, she’d not loved him enough.
Through clenched teeth he said, “It seems the Dowager Duchess of Quamby will see her son marry at any cost if she’s prepared to countenance a match with an ineligible. Why not Miss Antoinette? She’s just as comely and willing and, unless you’ve ensured otherwise, her reputation is still intact.” He heard the snideness of his tone, an armour against his pain and turmoil. “There’s no slur upon her past, for all that that happy truth is more due to me than to you. Miss Antoinette has not entertained Bickling and Slyther and God knows who else, although it matters not one jot to me.”
There was something jarring in Bramley’s stillness. Fenton turned from his angry contemplation of the passing foot traffic as a drift of memory from the ball a little over a week ago floated just out of reach. What exactly was it Miss Brightwell had said with regard to Bramley’s conduct? It had been derisive, he knew that. He stared at Bramley’s profile and racked his brain. Something to the effect that Bramley was unlikely to have much regard for Antoinette’s best interests—that in fact Bramley was on a mission to do the precise opposite. At the time, Fenton had been too concerned with seeing to Fanny’s best interests to register that her remark indicated more than just a passing association. Yes, he knew they were acquainted and that Bramley had perhaps been put out by Fanny’s lack of interest…but was there more to it?
“How well do you really know Miss Brightwell?” With shoulders hunched, Fenton leaned menacingly across the small space between them.
A flash of lightning illuminated Bramley’s pallid, sweating brow. As usual, his lip was curled with derision. “She has the airs of a princess”—his voice was rough and ugly— “though she has not a penny to her name.”
It was as if a veil had been drawn from across Fenton’s eyes, though in truth he’d suspected it before, then discounted it. “She spurned your suit”—Fenton thrust out his hand and seized Bramley by the neck cloth—“didn’t she? Not just your attentions?”
Bramley wrenched free and threw himself back against the squabs as he hissed, “She told me I had the address of a costermonger and not to insult her with my persistence.”
“You offered marriage!”
“Of course I offered marriage,” Bramley muttered. His fingers tapped the scratched leather seats as he stared grimly at the rain-soaked streets. “D’you think I’d offer to make her my mistress?” He chewed his lower lip. “Yes, Fenton, I lied about the lovely Miss Fanny Brightwell when I saw the way she looked at you. I did not want to see her compete with all the other pretty, vacuous debutantes who parade their wares at Almacks, knowing she was the cream of the crop and could have anyone she wanted.” He rasped in a breath, muttering, “Not when I wanted her.”
Horror and prickles of cold sweat made Fenton shiver. What had he done? He had been taken for a fool, believing Bramley almost without qualification when he’d witnessed Fanny’s late-night visit to Lord Slyther’s. Believing the whispers of other no-doubt jaded, spurned suitors. Believing his mother’s insinuations. Assuming, upon reflection, that Fanny's eagerness for their coupling in the tent at Quamby’s ball and the fact that she had not bled were further evidence that she had not been a virgin. And all because it suited him to; that it justified him making her an offer so he could set her up now when he was too impatient to wait. He’d thought he could have the best of both worlds, hadn’t he?
Right now he hated himself.
Bramley was still talking. It was not soothing to listen to him go on, “And then Lord Slyther made her an offer. Antoinette told me. Miss Brightwell turned me down, but she was prepared to accept him. That mountain of pestilence!”
Fenton closed his eyes, mocked by memories that had, until now, sustained him.
He clarified, “Lord Slyther made an offer of marriage?” wincing as Bramley muttered viciously, “Given the choice, I daresay she’d have preferred me, but her mama had organised the match and was not about to let her wriggle out of it after her disappointment with Alverley.”
Fenton tried to breathe evenly through his anger. If ever a virtuous woman deserved revenge, Miss Brightwell did—but to be on the receiving end of her scorn and disgust when he’d imagined a lifetime of her delights was like a cold knife in his heart.
Yet he deserved it!
He turned back to Bramley and hissed, “You suggested I make her my mistress.”
Bramley stared through the window. “You’d hardly be so stupid, my dear fellow.” He appeared to have trouble breathing as he added, “I wanted to find a way to punish her for turning her nose up at me. I wanted to punish you for being to her what I wanted to be.” He let out his breath in a burst of sour air. “Now I’d embrace you with open arms if you enticed her away from my uncle. No doubt the designing wench plans to present him with an heir nine months from their wedding day.”
Perhaps even earlier than that.
Fenton clenched shut his eyes. Quamby’s heir. Fenton’s child.
“Good God, Fenton, what’s got into you?” Bramley’s words ended in a wail of pain as Fenton seized him by the collar and thrust him across the seat.
“I should call you out, here and now!” Fenton snarled as Bramley struggled beneath him. “Though I’d rather beat your brains to a pulp where you lie, you puling, whining puppy.”
