Dangerous Gentlemen (Daughters of Sin 2)

His wise mother counseled patience, and Aubrey was patient. More patient than he’d believed possible. Once again Margaret took to her bed—alone—in her own apartments and Aubrey, though he felt like a bull on a short rope, left her in peace this time. Nor did he seek other diversions. The life of celibacy did not come easily but he was smitten by his wife. Each day he sat with her, forcing himself to offer the kind of inconsequential chatter the doctor and his mother counseled.

Then Debenham returned. For the first time since her child’s death, Margaret laughed with pleasure as she welcomed her cousin on a week-long visit.

Jealously, Sir Aubrey observed their absorption in one another as they sat, heads close together in the conservatory or in the garden. Margaret’s tinkling laugh had the power to strike an all-consuming desire to damn the now-dashing, urbane Lord Debenham to hell, but wisely Sir Aubrey held his tongue.

Sir Aubrey had hoped that after Debenham’s week-long visit he would again enjoy the sweet compliance of his wife.

But as the amount of time the pair was closeted alone lengthened, Aubrey became increasingly hostile. His mother, who lived in the dower house and ate her dinner with the family, bade him show restraint, whatever it might cost him. Sir Aubrey was now a man of thirty, and patience and fortitude came more easily; but four months of celibacy prior to Debenham’s visit had made him restless.

His dismay was acute when Margaret wept silent tears and begged him to allow her a little more time to embrace the evening peace and solitude she claimed was making her better.

One evening Sir Aubrey visited her unannounced and dismay turned to horror when he saw it was not peace and solitude she was embracing, but her beloved cousin.

Debenham had faced him defiantly from the crumpled bed while Margaret sobbed into the pillow beside him. If Aubrey had a pistol he’d have shot him on the spot. Instead, he coldly gripped Debenham by the ear and hauled him, sputtering with indignation as he tried to cover his nakedness with his hands, across the room. He was about to hurl him into the passage when he realized he had no wish to advertise to the entire household—and hence the world—the fact he’d been cuckolded. So he kept silent.

Debenham’s valet, Jem Perkins, and several trunks were loaded summarily into the family carriage and dispatched to Margaret’s brother’s house. Aubrey, simmering in his own anger, had accepted Margaret’s tearful suggestion as the easy way out. It also gave him time to decide what to do.

Her betrayal had sliced his heart in two. As he’d stared into her beautiful, defiant face and listened to her tell him that while she’d come to love the husband she’d been forced to marry, she’d always loved her cousin and knew now she always would, he’d felt defeated for the first time in his life.

He had no notion of what to do, for to speak of his pain and anger and Margaret’s betrayal was to advertise his inadequacy to the world. So, like Margaret, he withdrew into himself.

His mother assumed it was his despair at his wife’s continued listlessness. She suggested Aubrey enjoy a few weeks in town. But while he’d attempted to take up with his old friends and find himself a mistress to ease his sexual frustration, he could think only of the lovely young wife he adored.

She did not love him but he did not want a separation. Debenham was due to return to the West Indies soon and Margaret would be henceforth the wife Aubrey wanted and needed. The memory of her soft cheek against his when he’d held her while she’d cried and begged his forgiveness was greater motivation than internal fury.

He decided he would forgive her, praying that no bastard child would be born within the next nine months for there were limits to what he was prepared to countenance.

But he loved her. The feeling was intense and he was powerless to force his mind to alternative pleasures or to put in motion some decisive action that would result in an informal separation.

Ten days after Margaret’s betrayal, Sir Aubrey had returned after some business to be told by his mother that Margaret was visiting her brother for a few days.

What happened after that was mired in blackness. Margaret, her brother James and their cousin Debenham ha

d been closeted in the library when he’d walked in. That they had been surprised in clandestine activities was supported by the fact that Debenham had seized the document on which they’d all been working and thrown it on the fire.

Within the hour, Margaret would be dead from a lethal dose of nightshade.

After that, Sir Aubrey became a different man.

In London he pursued pleasure to just short of a lethal dose and drowned that part of him that recoiled with sensitivity to unkindness and injustice. There was no room for that now.

So as Sir Aubrey sauntered amidst the Hyde Park promenaders, his finely tuned senses bade him observe from the corner of his eye that he was being regarded with feline interest by that bold and aggravating beauty, Miss Araminta Partington. She was advancing toward him beside a pale and uninteresting-looking friend, her gaze trained upon him.

He doffed his hat and offered her a sardonic smile. There was nothing of the retiring debutante about Miss Partington. Not that she was a debutante. Aubrey was well versed in the details regarding the unfortunate fate of her suitor who’d blown out his brains the previous season when Miss Partington reneged on their impending nuptials. Indeed, the affair had given rise to a wager in White’s Betting Book with high odds on Miss Partington once again being prevailed upon to spread her lily-white thighs without the promise of a wedding band. Aubrey knew Debenham was one of many intent upon securing such favors and winning the bet.

Any doubt that Miss Partington might still be mourning the unfortunate gentleman in question was put to rest by the jaunty glint in her eye as she surveyed the male contingent.

He cursed the stirring in his loins, a frequent ache that made him long for Margaret. Since her death he was the first to admit he’d descended into a pit of vice quite foreign to him prior to his marriage. His sexual impulses, however, would only be assuaged by cypriots, he’d decided after leaving the brooding solitude of the country for the faster pace of city life. While he was not amongst those betting on the chance to tup Miss Araminta Partington, he was nevertheless not immune to her charms. Indeed, there was a brash carelessness about her that appealed to his jaded senses.

Miss Araminta was forward and beautiful. He suspected she’d be every bit his equal in bed while her vanity and grasping nature would ensure Aubrey never became too emotionally vulnerable in her orbit. That was a requirement of any future wife of his.

“Good afternoon to you, Miss Partington. What lovely weather we are enjoying.”

After introducing her friend, she boldly fell into step with him, taking his proffered arm and simpering up at him as she agreed on his weather-related pronouncement.

“I did not see you at Lady Develey’s ball.” She fanned herself, adding with a pointed look, “You said you would be there when we met at Vauxhall.”

“Indeed I did.” The memory of Vauxhall made his mouth stretch into a smile that had nothing to do with the pouting beauty before him and everything to do with the extremely satisfying lovemaking he’d enjoyed with the pretty little ladybird who he was initiating into the ways of the world. He did not believe young Harriet was taking him for a fool. Not that it mattered. Business was business. However, if he cared to admit it, his pleasure went deeper than simple release. His Henrietta really was rather sweet.