To Distraction (Bastion Club 5)

He kept his eyes steady on Audrey’s face. “Lady Cranbrook’s a friend of yours, isn’t she?”

Audrey grinned. “Indeed. I’ll be traveling down tomorrow.” She let her gaze slide appreciatively over him, taking in his broad shoulders encased in Bath superfine, his neatly tied cravat, pristine linen, fashionable waistcoat, and his long legs, stretched out before him, defined muscles apparent beneath tight-fitting buckskin breeches tucked into glossy black Hessians. Her grin widened. “And if I tell Maria I’ve persuaded you to attend, she’ll kiss my feet.”

He grimaced. “And when will Miss Malleson be arriving?”

“Oh, Edith won’t want to miss a day—and you’d be well advised to take advantage of every moment available. If you arrive in the afternoon the day after tomorrow, then I’m sure Phoebe will be there. The party is only for four days, so you’ll want to make use of every minute.”

He frowned. “I will?”

“Well, of course! You surely can’t imagine your campaign will be easy?”

His campaign? “How long can it take to look Miss Malleson over and decide to offer for her hand? You’ve already assured me she’s suitable on all counts bar the personal.”

Audrey sobered. She regarded him directly for a long minute, then slowly shook her head. “Dear boy, you have the matter entirely by the tail. It’s not a case of Phoebe meeting with your approval, but of you meeting with hers. And that won’t be readily forthcoming. It’s not a question of whether she’s the perfect bride for you—you may rest assured she is—but of you convincing her that you are the perfect husband for her.”

He blinked.

Audrey smiled, fondly patronizing again. “You surely didn’t think securing the perfect bride would be easy.”

Reading the truth in her eyes, Deverell swallowed a groan.

He could think of ten activities he’d much rather be engaged in than setting out to persuade some difficult-to-please lady she should entrust her hand to him. Nevertheless, riven by mixed feelings, two days later he duly tooled his curricle out of town and down the newly macadamized roads into Surrey.

At least the day was fine, the breeze light, scented with grass and earthy growing things. His pair of matched grays leaned into their harness, glad to be stretching their legs beyond the confines of London’s crowded streets.

He was of two minds about following Audrey’s direction, yet he had asked, and she’d given her aid—her opinions and her advice. To not follow said advice might well rate as flying in the face of fate, and he’d long ago learned to bow when necessary. As his need of a bride was acute, the present situation qualified; that need was what had driven him to swallow his pride and ask for Audrey’s help in the first place.

Besides, underneath it all he trusted Audrey; he had confidence in her ability to read him. Consequently he was more than a little curious to meet the paragon she’d deemed perfect for him. God knew his own reconnaissance had signally failed to uncover any lady close to that ideal.

Until Audrey had mentioned it, he hadn’t considered the more than ten years he’d spent as a secret operative in Paris throughout the latter years of the war, when he’d kept a close eye on the commercial links crucial to the operation of the French state—the contracts, the connections—and, when wise or necessary, disrupting those links, to have had any material bearing on his requirements in a bride. No matter how deeply he delved into his own character, he couldn’t see that those years, and all he’d done and been forced to do, had changed him, not the true him, the real him behind his polished exterior.

He was the same man he’d always been destined to be…but, on reflection, he could see that Audrey might be correct in one sense: The years had entrenched his traits. The experience had made him harder, more definite and defined, more ruthless and impatient; he’d been forced to face questions many men went most if not all their lives without facing—the sort of questions that, once answered, disallowed self-delusion.

Consequently he knew and accepted that he wouldn’t be an easygoing husband, the sort of mild-mannered gentleman fashionable ladies married and thereafter took for granted. He was demanding, and not just as a lover; if a lady was his, he would expect to be the central focus of her life. And in such matters he had very little tolerance; his temper was such that he could bend just so far, and no further.

Indeed, his temper was one aspect ladies rarely read aright. The persona he showed to the world was one of fashionably languid laissez-faire. The reality was that he was ruthless and determined, and in the main insisted and ensured that he got his own way; he might smile and charm while he did it, but the result was the same.

A comfortable gentleman he was not, nor would he ever be.

And that was the root cause behind his rejection of all the bright young things he’d had paraded before him in recent months. If a magic wand had been waved and they’d been allowed to see the real man behind his glamor, the majority would have fainted. The rest would have fled.

He wasn’t the sort of man who would fit their mold, regardless of the ambitions too many of them, and even more of their mamas, fondly nursed.

Which was why from the first—the opening of the Season a month or so ago—he’d been careful. As until recently he’d been unencumbered by large estates, London had always been his favored haunt; although previously he

’d known it only as a well-heeled gentleman of twenty-one, he’d learned the ton’s ropes well enough. Enough to exercise all due caution. Enough to reconnoiter from the sidelines, appearing at balls at the last moment decency allowed and escaping half an hour later, as soon as he’d assessed the young ladies present.

Such guerrilla tactics, often executed in the company of Christian Allardyce, Marquess of Dearne, had caused consternation among the matchmaking ranks, but had kept everyone safe. Christian was a close comrade, one of the other six gentlemen of similar ilk—ex-secret operatives now retired from His Majesty’s service, all wealthy, titled, and needing to return to the world of the ton, and thus all requiring a wife—who had the previous year banded together to form the Bastion Club, their bolthole and stronghold against the marauding mamas who prowled the ton.

All of them had been determined not to fall victim to any leg-shackling trap but rather to choose their own brides, and while he had doubts that rational choice had been quite the way matters had transpired, four of their number were now happily married. Three days ago he’d returned from Jack Warnefleet’s wedding in Somerset even more set on finding his own bride.

He could admit, if only to himself, that seeing the others find their mates had increased his own restlessness, had escalated his need to find his bride—his salvation. The thought of returning to his new castle, Paignton Hall in Devon, alone, to face a summer of being hunted by every local mama with a daughter to settle, to have to attend innumerable functions and smile, chat, dance, all the while forever remaining on guard was for him a working description of hell.

During all the years he’d spent in France—every minute of every day of every month of every year—he’d been on guard. Alert, watchful, never resting. He was tired of the tension and increasingly impatient over the continuing need; although now home, he still needed to be on guard.

He’d had enough of it.

He wanted—needed—surcease. He wanted to relax, to enjoy a woman again—her company, her laughter, her body, her sighs of pleasure—without having the specter of her likely motives hanging over his head.