Page 4 of A Deal with the Burdened Viscount (Marriage Deals #3)

The late afternoon light slanted through the tall, frosted windows of White’s Gentlemen’s Club, filtering in like misted gold and casting long shadows across the room’s timeworn carpet and gleaming mahogany floorboards. Outside, the bustle of St. James’s Street echoed faintly through the thick glass panes—carriage wheels, iron-shod hooves, the occasional call of a street hawker—yet within these walls, the world felt suspended. Time moved differently here, slowed to the pace of a drawn match and a long pour of brandy.

The club was a sanctuary of masculine indulgence, steeped in the scent of pipe smoke, aged spirits, and the faintest whisper of cologne—blended into a heady perfume that spoke of centuries of privilege and exclusivity.

The walls were paneled in dark walnut, so highly polished that the dancing flames of the marble hearth reflected faintly in their surface. Above them, gilt-framed oil portraits of dead men stared solemnly down. Former members, dignitaries, and dukes, watched over the club’s distinguished members, their expressions fixed in studied superiority. Between them hung hunting scenes and military engagements, chosen as much for their patriotic tenor as their decorative appeal.

The furniture was solid and severe—deep leather armchairs softened by age and countless occupants, their arms worn smooth, their backs permanently indented in the shape of lounging aristocracy. Rugs of muted burgundy and navy softened the echo of footsteps, though few men walked quickly here. A sense of unhurried permanence clung to every corner.

At one end of the room, beneath a high ceiling molded in pale ivory and trimmed with gold leaf, a group of older gentlemen gathered in silence around a circular table beneath the great hanging clock. Their heads bent solemnly over the day’s paper, or more likely, over the betting book— White’s famed ledger of wagers, containing everything from the outcomes of horse races to the likelihood of a politician’s disgrace. Some bets, so absurdly specific, had acquired a legend of their own. No gentleman ever spoke of them aloud, but their existence was common knowledge, whispered about in corners over cards and whiskey.

The clientele of White’s varied in detail, but not in kind. There were titled aristocrats and younger heirs, army men on leave and members of parliament in their frock coats, all of them bound together by birth, wealth, or affiliation with the old families of England. It was not merely a club but a citadel of the elite, a place where influence passed not through speeches but through glances, where alliances were formed in silence over a drink, and reputations unmade with a sigh and a shrug.

A pair of junior members—young, eager, perhaps a touch too well-groomed—conversed in low tones near the fire, clearly hoping to catch the eye of a peer of consequence. Nearby, a gray-haired Viscount leafed slowly through The Times , his monocle gleaming briefly in the firelight as he paused to grunt at some political nonsense or another. The conversation was sparse but civilized. Murmured comments about foreign affairs, trade, the state of the Navy, and the fortunes—or misfortunes—of mutual acquaintances.

Waitstaff in subdued livery moved like ghosts through the haze, their presence discreet, their service nearly invisible unless summoned. One gentleman lifted a single finger, and moments later, a crystal tumbler was refreshed, the amber liquid catching the light like bottled fire.

It was into this rarefied atmosphere that Arthur Beaumont stepped, his presence barely acknowledged save for a courteous incline of a head here and there from older members who remembered his father. He moved with practiced ease, a man neither posing nor posturing, but belonging—at least outwardly. The heaviness of the air—the mingled scents, the closeness of the fire, the subdued murmur of old voices—was familiar, almost comforting.

And yet, on this particular afternoon, the comfort did not reach him.

Arthur Beaumont, Viscount of Westbrook, sat deep in a high-backed leather armchair in one of the club’s quieter corners, swirling his tawny-brown brandy in a heavy crystal glass. Across from him, Sir James Fitzwilliam—friend, confidant, and occasional tormentor—regarded him over the rim of his own glass with an expression that was both wry and amused.

“Well?” James prompted after a pause; his tone mild. “You’ve been brooding into that drink for five solid minutes. Out with it, then. What has put such a thundercloud over your brow?”

Arthur gave a noncommittal grunt, tapping a finger along the glass’s rim.

“It was nothing,” he said, with the carefully measured boredom of a man who very much wished to believe his own words. “An overturned cart, some ill-balanced crates. Miss Darlington happened to be in the path of destruction. I was nearby. I reacted. I would have done the same for anyone.”

“Word on the grapevine suggests you made quite the rescue,” James’s eyebrows rose. “Heroically, one hears.”

Arthur shot him a look. “There was nothing heroic about it. It was purely instinct.”

James tilted his head, amusement dancing in his eyes. “Most instincts, I find, are telling.”

Arthur ignored the not-so-subtle barbed comments. He stared into his brandy, the comforting scent rising warm and sharp. The club around them hummed with familiar ritual—discussions of racing odds, political posturing, someone expounding on the state of affairs in Vienna—but he felt distantly removed from it all, his mind looping back against his will to a particular moment frozen in time.

The moment he caught her.

Abigail Darlington.

He remembered the feel of her in his arms—unexpectedly slight, yet solid, her breath catching against his shoulder. Her eyes had met his with such unguarded clarity that it had left him momentarily speechless, suspended in a world that had narrowed to just the two of them, framed by shards of pots and stunned onlookers.

He had told himself it was nothing. A fluke. Circumstance. He had done what any gentleman would have done.

And yet…

“You’re still frowning,” James observed, leaning forward to top off his glass from a shared decanter. “You’ve that look about you. The one you wear when trying to convince yourself you feel absolutely nothing about something you very clearly do.”

Arthur exhaled slowly, the ghost of a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Am I being ridiculous?” James’s tone was light, but his gaze sharpened. “The ton certainly doesn’t think so. I’ve heard no fewer than three versions of the tale already—each more dramatic than the last. In one, you wrestled a horse to save her. In another, you carried her bodily from the wreckage of the market.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Ludicrous.”

“Mayhap. By tomorrow, it might involve wrestling bears to the ground. But this is London. Reputation is built on far less than a near-embrace in Covent Garden.” James swirled his glass idly. “And you are a Viscount. She is a lady. A moment, witnessed by enough mouths, becomes a legacy before dusk falls.”

Arthur’s jaw tightened. “It was an accident.”

James nodded, unbothered. “And yet, appearances matter. Especially when the lady in question is Miss Abigail Darlington—already whispered about as ‘spirited’ and ‘unconventional’.”

Arthur scoffed, but James pressed on. “I am merely suggesting you consider the implications. You know how this city operates—idle tongues wag, reputations shatter. If you do not control the narrative, someone else will write it for you.”

Arthur’s fingers tightened around his glass.

He had spent years constructing a fortress of detachment around himself—walls built from logic, routine, and quiet disdain for society’s foolishness. But one slip, one unexpected moment of intimacy in the middle of a flower stall, and that fortress had cracked.

And yet, hadn’t the first fissures appeared long ago?

He thought suddenly of Sophia Carter.

Of her laughter—the way it used to float over his shoulder like something enchanted. Of the nights they had stood too close by candlelight, trading glances heavy with unsaid promises. And then, of the cold clarity that had come when, out of the blue, she accepted another man’s proposal—one with a greater title, a larger fortune.

He had been young. Foolish. He had believed in something deeper than arrangement.

And he had been proven wrong.

Since then, he had trusted no one.

“Have you spoken to her?” James asked gently.

Arthur shook his head. “There was nothing to say. I left as soon as decorum allowed.”

“Ah, yes,” James murmured, “decorum—the great shield of cowards and cynics.”

Arthur smirked, despite himself.

“Touché.”

They lapsed into silence for a time, the fire crackling nearby, casting golden light across the wood-paneled walls. Outside the windows, the afternoon was giving way to dusk.

Eventually, Arthur looked across at James. “What would you have me do? Announce a betrothal over an accident?”

James raised his eyebrows. “I would have you do what feels right. But if you’re asking strategically—yes, consider your next move carefully. If you wish to preserve your own reputation—and hers—you must be seen to act with honour.”

Arthur was silent for a long moment.

James studied him carefully. “Unless,” he added more quietly, “your hesitation has less to do with strategy and more to do with fear.”

Arthur’s gaze snapped to him. “Fear?”

“Indeed. Of feeling something again. Of risking the sort of foolishness Sophia taught you to avoid.” He stared at his friend, attempting to invoke a response. When none came, he continued. “You know, you could do a lot worse that Miss Abigail Darlington, old man, despite whatever gossip the ton purports to be true.”

Arthur said nothing. He was still considering James’s insinuation that this had to do with his fear.

The truth of it hung in the air like pipe smoke—lingering, acrid, inescapable.

James sighed and stood, setting his glass on the side table. “I only ever press you because I know there is more to you than this… shield of protection. And if there is a woman who might actually slip past your guard, I suspect Miss Darlington may be the one to do it.”

Arthur lifted his eyes slowly, expression cool. “You presume a great deal, James.”

James smiled, not unkindly. “Perhaps. But I’ve spent enough years listening to you wax cynical about society’s follies to recognize when your indifference is being tested. You’ve danced and spoken with a great many women, and yet it was only with her that you forgot to pretend you were bored.”

Arthur looked away, his gaze turning once more toward the flickering hearth.

“I merely suggest,” James went on, rising and adjusting the line of his coat with a practiced hand, “that if you continue to hide behind your disdain for emotional entanglements, you might one day look up and find yourself alone. And if that is your wish, I shall never mention it again. But I think it is not.”

He paused then, waiting. When no reply came, James reached for his gloves and hat resting atop the adjacent table.

“I’ll leave you to your solitude, then,” he said quietly. “But I will say this, Arthur: if you are not careful, someone else may have the wisdom to see her worth before you do. And that, I fear, would be the true tragedy.”

He inclined his head with the polite formality of a man departing a drawing room rather than a club chamber, his tone gently measured. “Good night, old friend.”

Arthur gave a slight nod in return. “Good night, James.”

James lingered only a second more. He offered a final, knowing glance before he turned and walked toward the oak double doors that led back into the hum of the main chamber, his footsteps muffled by the thick weave of the rug beneath their feet.

Arthur sat in silence.

He remained seated long after James had gone, watching the brandy in his glass catch and bend the firelight. How long he stayed there, he did not know, but he remained motionless. The room was quiet now, save for the soft crackle from the hearth and the faint murmur of voices in the adjacent room, dulled by distance and velvet curtains.

His expression was still, composed, unreadable—but the slight tapping of his fingers against the crystal betrayed a nervous energy.

He didn’t like to be challenged. And James, infuriatingly, had a way of doing it with surgical precision. Arthur hadn’t come to White’s to reflect on women or scandal. He’d come to forget the incident—Abigail’s voice, her weight in his arms, the feel of her breath catching just beneath his collarbone.

To forget the feel of Abigail’s breath against his throat as he lifted her from the cold stone street.

To forget the weight of her, so real and fragile in his arms.

To forget the look in her eyes—stunned, wounded, betrayed.

And yet…

Memory had its own cruel rhythms. It circled back, again and again, until it carved something permanent in the mind. James’s words, though irritatingly insightful, had merely reopened a door Arthur had been attempting, with increasing futility, to keep shut.

He did not want to be vulnerable again. He had no desire to return to that old wound. And yet, here he was—haunted by the sound of a single gasp, the whisper of silk, the sudden shattering of the world he’d thought so neatly arranged.

With a soft exhale, he set his empty glass down on the walnut table beside him and rose, smoothing a hand down his lapel. The fire hissed behind him. Somewhere in the club’s depths, a man laughed too loudly. Arthur crossed the room and exited into the soft, encroaching dusk of St. James’s.

The London streets were beginning to glow with lamplight, their golden halos blurring in the cool spring air. Carriages rattled past. A newspaper boy called out headlines near the corner. The city was winding down, not into silence, but into the deep, comforting murmur of evening.

Arthur turned up his collar and began the walk back to his townhouse.

He needed the air. Needed the movement. Anything to shake loose the persistent image of her face—Miss Abigail Darlington—tilted up toward him in the pale light of Covent Garden. There had been something unguarded in her gaze. Vulnerability, yes. But strength, too. And honesty. No artifice.

And that, perhaps, was what unsettled him most.

So many of the ladies he encountered wore expressions like carefully selected accessories—smiles practiced, laughter rehearsed, glances weighted for effect. But Abigail had not performed. She had simply existed in that moment—startled, disoriented, and entirely real.

And he had felt something.

Not desire, not exactly. That would be too simple.

It was... recognition.

A fleeting sense that here was someone else pretending to belong to a world that grated against the grain of who they truly were.

He passed a baker’s window and caught the scent of warm loaves and honeyed buns. A couple exited arm-in-arm from a nearby bookshop, their hands brushing in an unthinking gesture of ease. Arthur watched them with a strange twist in his chest.

Had he ever looked at Sophia that way? So unguarded? So trusting?

No. With Sophia Carter, he had looked forward—toward what might be, what she might be with him. But he had not seen her for what she was—ambitious, poised, calculating. She had known what she wanted, and when it had not been Arthur, she had moved on with clinical precision.

He had told himself it had hardened him for the better. Taught him realism, not romanticism. That detachment was strength.

But now…

Abigail had not asked for his protection. Had not simpered or clung or blushed like a girl grateful for a rescue. She had steadied herself, thanked him plainly, and returned to her composure without clinging to the moment.

And still, she lingered in his thoughts.

He turned down a narrower lane, the echo of his boots quieter here. Beaumont Manor was only a few streets off, its windows already lit with warm glow. He should have been glad of it—glad to return to order, to solitude.

But instead, his steps slowed.

He imagined her again—Abigail—standing amid shattered pottery and scattered lilies, as if plucked from a dream and dropped unceremoniously into the chaos of his world. He had caught her by instinct, indeed. But something else had held him there.

Some small, dangerous seed of possibility.

He paused at a wrought-iron gate near the square, his hand resting on the cool iron as he glanced toward a narrow garden tucked behind a stone wall.

The tulips there swayed gently in the breeze, their scarlet and ivory heads nodding like polite greetings from another world—one untouched by scandal or scrutiny. The sight stirred a memory he had not meant to keep. The vivid chaos of Covent Garden, the scatter of petals and pottery, and Abigail’s voice—breathless, startled, unmistakably real—uttering his name.

Arthur’s jaw tightened.

It was nothing, he told himself. A coincidence. A moment of chance. He had happened to be there, that was all. The city was not so large that two people might not cross paths unexpectedly.

And yet, there had been something about the way her fingers had curled unconsciously against the fabric of his coat, the slight tremor in her voice as she thanked him. A vulnerability so swiftly masked, it was lingering far longer than it should have in his thoughts.

He drew in a slow breath, the evening air tinged with lilac and coal smoke. He was tired. That was all. Too much society, too many women whose faces blurred together, too many conversations that began and ended with nothing of consequence. Abigail Darlington was simply a deviation from the expected—sharp-witted, reserved, disarmingly self-possessed.

And undeniably intriguing.

He pushed open the gate to Beaumont Manor and stepped through, the familiar crunch of gravel beneath his boots grounding him. The butler opened the door before he could reach for the handle, and the soft candle-light of the entrance hall washed over the marble floors and mahogany paneling, unchanged and unmoved by anything beyond its walls.

He shrugged off his coat, handed over his gloves, murmured a quiet good evening—and still, something in him resisted the calm.

As he ascended the stairs to his study, the tulips lingered in his mind. The garden. Her voice.

Perhaps it was nothing.

And yet, as he reached the landing and paused to glance out toward the darkened city below, Arthur felt the faint, unmistakable pull of curiosity.

Not affection. Not yet.

But something that might become dangerous, if left unchecked.

He turned away from the window, his steps echoing down the corridor behind him.

Whatever this might be, it would require close observation.