Page 10 of Tall, Dark and December (The Rake Review #12)

CHAPTER TEN

WHERE A LOVESICK ENGINEER PUZZLES OVER THE MECHANICS OF LIFE

W est balanced the teacup on his belly, his brother’s voice droning on about an earl’s dramatic reading next week and the potential investors in attendance. Or a supper party, maybe it was? Another sorrowful ball, possibly, when he’d already been to one this week. He’d carried the stack of invitations to White’s this morning so a duke could weigh in on which events were worth his effort.

Because his time was reserved for his engines and his girl.

Every spare moment the past week had been spent tucked in Penny’s art studio until dawn or in his flat. They’d made utterly wondrous use of his desk in the warehouse when she showed up looking fresh as a daisy but with a naughty edge in her amber eyes. Surprisingly, the narrow iron bedstead in the loft didn’t make any noise. That was the first time she climbed astride and rode them to completion, West recalled with a fast smile.

He dropped his head back, mind elsewhere, utterly absent from this posh space. Tristan was now expounding on the opera and fancy box seating he had there. The ceiling of the gentlemen’s club was everything you’d think it should be, West decided as he lost himself in the swirling rosettes and Greek design. Actually, the chandelier plopping wax into the pans beneath created a calming atmosphere.

While his heart raced with every thought of her.

West’s world was shifting, pieces falling into place without his orchestration, which wasn’t common. He’d had to work until his fingers bled for everything he had. The letter from Emelia was in a crisp fold in his waistcoat pocket, no fragrance on these pages. She was marrying Oliver Brumble, a local magistrate West didn’t hate. It would be an excellent union of two strong-willed and reasonably selfish individuals, a match made in commerce if not heaven.

His missive telling her he’d met someone and might be staying longer in England had likely passed hers in transit over the Atlantic.

West rolled his shoulder—the one Penny had bitten hard enough to bruise that first night—and wondered what the hell he was supposed to do next. He hadn’t made smart use of his experience, and they’d played risky dealings on more than one occasion, meaning she could be pregnant. The rush of joy when he rationalized this fact said a lot. Then, he recalled who he was and who she was, and he talked himself out of his feelings. Until he looked at the glorious painting she’d given him, the best gift of his life, next to her .

Putting him back where he started, agonizing and lovestruck.

“Are you here, Brother, or anywhere in London for that matter?”

West shook himself and corrected his posture, sitting up straight, Penny’s voice chiming, Elegance when seated as well as standing. “You were saying something about the opera?”

The Duke of Mercer’s brow lifted, a regal show West could copy down to the bone. “Actually, I had moved to a discussion of Lord Bigsby’s Christmastide musicale. There might be a man or two attending who you wish to speak with. Lord Taylor-Fontaine has blunt to burn from what I gather.”

West’s gaze strayed to the roaring blaze in the hearth. I have no right to touch her. Not like the barons and viscounts and damned marquesses.

With a groaning stretch, Tristan propped his polished boot on the table, earning a cross scowl from the nob across the parlor who evidently didn’t know dukes could do as they bloody pleased. “Would you like to talk about what is pulling you away today? From business which, from what I know, rarely happens.”

West thumbed a drop of tea off the rim of his cup, his mind constructing calculations about life this time. Tristan and Penny worked extra hours to knock down the walls he’d created—and he was starting to let them. “Class is such a thing in this country. At home, being self-made is something to be celebrated. We have no titles to give, you see. I don’t suppose bastard half-brother to a duke is a splendid one.”

Tristan hid his smile unsuccessfully behind a wrinkled copy of the Gazette . “Society isn’t real. It’s more a concept to keep people in line. You can go outside it, West. No one’s going to stop you, not with a duke standing behind you, legitimate or no.”

“How real is not real?” West murmured, unsure if this was straight speak. Tristan didn’t understand how low he’d been at the start in Philadelphia. His horror of a childhood hadn’t been fully discussed, not yet.

Although, it was progress he considered sharing anything.

“Camille came into my life at exactly the right time,” Tristan said, his own gaze having drifted to the flickering flames. Men didn’t like going eye to eye when they talked of love. “Waterloo was over but not, and in every way, she saved me. An intractable girl who’d fought a swan in the Serpentine and adored me from the time she was little had the power to remove the bands strapped around my chest. For the first time in forever, I could breathe .”

When the silence rang without a response, Tristan sighed and laid the newspaper on his thigh. “Sound familiar?

West glanced at his brother, his heart lifting at having someone to talk to. At finally having family . “It appears so. Except the woman releasing my bands is not so much stubborn as kindly relentless. The type of tender persistence that wears a man down after a bit.”

“Word in the betting book is that an earl’s daughter is rebuffing a marquess for unknown reasons. It was expected to blossom into a sedate romance but has not. Camille rebuffed a poor sod back in the day, I’m happy to tell you. The Tierneys are a breed who must fight for their women.”

With a hushed “Your Grace,” a footman of some sort interrupted them, the silver tray balanced on his open palm bearing an envelope.

Tristan calmly took the communication as if deliveries occurred wherever he went. Breaking the wax seal, he frowned as he read it, his gaze shooting West’s way twice before he tucked the page in his coat pocket.

“What is it?” West asked, the hair on the nape of his neck rising.

“If I tell you,” Tristan said, pressing his fist to his lips, “you have to promise you won’t buy a ticket on the next transport to the Colonies. When and if that ever occurs, you discuss it with me first. Your place, for now, is here. I only inquired about this matter because I don’t sanction my family being threatened in any way, no matter how trivial.”

The pain and pleasure of having an older brother, West reasoned as fear and fondness settled in his belly. After a time, he nodded. However, watching a duke struggle for words was more than West could withstand. Swearing, he snapped his fingers. “Give me the note, Tris.”

The message was brief, four lines of black script on creamy vellum bearing the marker Bromley, Grimes & Beedle, Solicitors.

To His Grace, The Duke of Mercer

Regarding The Brazen Belle Inquiry

Your Grace,

Our investigator tracked a package sent from the business on Paternoster Row responsible for printing The Rake Review column to a home in Islington. The residence is currently leased by Lady Penelope Anstruther-Colbrook. The package was signed for by a domestic, Basil Pritchard, whose family has served the Anstruther-Colbrook’s since 1787. The contents of the package are unknown, although we will keep researching this matter in confidence, per your accord.

Yours Faithfully, James Beedle

Dumbstruck, West closed his eyes, the pain soon to be a blinding headache. Obviously, dukes employed better investigators than he did.

“Before you make a final judgment, before you destroy a budding relationship, can I advise you to talk to her first? If Lady Penelope is writing this ridiculous column, if she’s the Brazen Belle, it’s due to unstable finances. She has no one to support her, not a soul. There aren’t many ways a woman of standing can pay her bills aside from marriage. We don’t know what it’s like to be this desperate.”

“I know exactly what desperation feels like,” West whispered, rocking forward in his chair, tea splashing on his waistcoat. It made sense, actually. The Belle was overly concerned with decorum and social strata, as his tutor had been. And wouldn’t it make a solid case, if placed before a judge and jury, for the author of a column dedicated to exposing rakes be a woman abused by such a man in her past? A way for someone relegated to dark corners at balls, her ability to marry limited to aging viscounts, to seek revenge and, at the same time, profit?

West cracked his cup to the table, blood pulsing in his temples. Except this wasn’t any woman, this was Penny. He’d shared things with her he’d never shared with another soul. He’d been close to telling her everything. Opening his heart and letting her climb inside.

He rose to a shaky stand, wishing he believed love could exist without trust .

Tristan was on his feet, his hand closing around West’s arm. “Slow down and think. I made mistakes that almost cost me Camille, and I will tell you, her love was worth my fortitude. And mine worth hers .”

West shook off his brother’s hold but paused at the salon’s door. “I’m not leaving England, Tris. You’re right, my place is here for now. If this”—he swallowed, shoving the slice of agony deep—“if it’s true, this Belle mess, you aren’t a part of it. I’d like you, Camille, and Ethan to be part of my future. I’d like us to be brothers.”

Leaving a duke with a stunned expression, West departed on a quest to discover the truth.

Gilded moonlight from a crisp winter evening floated into the art studio through the garret’s lone window to splash across the paint-scarred floorboards. Penelope leaned over the sketch pad, her charcoal hovering over the sheet. Trying to capture West’s sleepy smile when he’d awakened this morning was a challenging endeavor. Faces were harder to capture than sunsets, she was finding. Although she could see every sharp plane and gentle hollow of his visage as well as any landscape, images burned on her brain.

Images burned on her heart .

Smiling softly, she squeezed her legs together, her skin tender from his touch. They’d made love just before dawn, nestled in his bed, his body curved around hers, his chest to her back. A breathtaking position, lingering, intimate, his hand cupping her breast, his fingers teasing the delicate folds between her thighs as he moved inside her.

She’d never known such passion existed before him, and she hoped to never have another to compare because West was incomparable.

She was ready to tell him she loved him, days past ready. When she worked up the courage, the last time while lazing in that skinny iron bedstead in his warehouse, there would be a second’s hesitation— his —that left her hesitating as well. He loved her, too, she suspected. She owned more of him than Emelia, Lady P, and the others. She hoped, she guessed. He was with her most times, present, but then he’d drift away after a comment sent him spinning into the past, his walls rising high. And quickly.

She wished she believed love could exist without trust .

Penelope glanced up as his boots sounded on the staircase, her pulse hastening. There would never be a time Weston Whitaker didn’t send her heartbeat soaring the instant she saw him. She scrambled up and was scrubbing at a streak of charcoal on her cheek when he stepped into the room.

She turned—and immediately knew something was wrong. His face held a wariness she hadn’t seen in weeks. Lines drawn, battle ready.

“What is it?” Penelope asked without crossing to him, the first time he’d come to the garret she hadn’t thrown herself into his arms. She couldn’t when her gut was telling her don’t .

His chest lifted on a stark inhalation. His lips parted, closed, then parted again. “Fuck,” he whispered, yanking his hand through his hair. Sweaty and disheveled, he appeared to have run the distance from the city center to Islington. As always, a little maddened by his handsomeness, he took her breath away. “Was I fodder for more columns? Because of my connection to Tristan and, I don’t know, the American bit? I knew I was a man of the hour, but this? You could have told me, I might have understood. Before .”

She squinted, trying to establish if he was foxed. “Have you and Mercer been drinking? What are you talking about?”

Glancing away, his chest rising on another harsh sigh, he tunneled his hand in his pocket and came out with a note, which he tossed to her.

She grabbed it midair, the action lifting his lips for a scant second before despair flooded his eyes, darkening them to a deadly emerald. Whatever was concerning him was serious.

She read the missive three times before her gaze found his. If he expected regret from her, he was going to be sadly disappointed, the stubborn fool. “I was betrayed, too, Wes, in front of all of London, but I didn’t let it ruin me.”

He shook his head as if to clear it. “I’m not ruined.”

“You are,” she said and marched to the hearth, where she tossed the note in the flames. The vellum caught, fringes firing much like her temper. “I take one step forward, two back with you. Constantly. Knocking down your walls, then watching them go right up again. You said you trusted me, but you lied.” Turning to him, she let her fury show. It felt bloody wonderful —because women had to keep their feelings crammed in a trunk to survive in this blasted world. She desired liberation. “You don’t trust anyone! Why should I be any different? A true relationship takes more than sexual congress. You don’t have it in you to do, to be , more.”

West frowned and shifted from boot to boot, truly confounded. She loved him, she did, with her entire being, but she loved herself more . Her days of lying awake at night loathing little pieces of herself she couldn’t change were over. Stalking across the space, right up to him, toe to toe, she slapped the penny she’d kept in her pocket since he presented it to her in his hand. “You can take this back , thank you very much.”

He stared at the coin, his fingers closing around it. Did his eyes have to be such an astounding shade unlike any other? Did he have to look so impossibly young and tormented and beautiful? “What am I to think, Penny? The package came here from the printer. Signed for by Basil, your family’s footman since before you were born.”

Her vision went rosy-red. Ripping her spectacles off, she rubbed her eyes to keep from throttling him. “He’s a butler. Basil is a butler. As for you, you could, perhaps, believe the woman you know intimately wouldn’t write a column set to destroy people, destroy families . That if she did, for financial reasons, conduct this business, which I’m guessing you and Mercer considered, she’d tell you before letting you into her bed. Into her heart. Especially seeing as you were December’s celebrant.” She laughed, a thready sound, and replaced her spectacles. “I’m not the only person who lives in this house if you recall.”

West’s expression loosened as realization hit. “Isabella,” he murmured.

Penelope stalked to her sketch pad and closed it with a snap, having no intention of finishing what was now a futile experiment. She wasn’t some silly portrait artist!

“Why would your sister do this? It’s reckless and senseless, and I mean, really, could she be the Brazen Belle? Is she as daring as that?”

Penelope glanced over her shoulder, love a stone weighing her down. Part of her wanted to save him from this struggle, which made her angrier. She was weary from being everything for everyone and leaving little for herself. “Reckless, daring, and senseless sum her up well. You love maths so much. You figure out the equation of Isabella Anstruther-Colbrook.” Penelope wasn’t happy about her sister and her possible involvement in this Rake Review muddle, but right now, she was dealing with a baffled lover and a broken heart. She’d deal with Isabella in a short hour or two upon her return. “You can go, Whitaker. You know the way.”

West took a step toward her, but she held up her arm to hold him back. “You have a dab”—he dusted his index finger across his cheek—“of charcoal, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart. With a stamina she couldn’t believe she possessed, Penelope let the streak remain on her skin. To spite him, she wasn’t going to remove it for days. “Close the gate, will you? Last time, it banged against the latch. A sound I’m used to, as it were. Your bedrails need adjustment.”

“Dammit, Penny, do you want me to lose what’s left of my mind? You know when you order me around like a general, so Britishly prim and proper, it makes my damned heart skip. And my cock, not to be too vulgar about it.”

“I want you to leave,” she whispered, images of him climbing over her, grasping her hips, and thrusting inside her hours ago swimming through her senses. “And I feel quite certain about the request.”

He took another step, arms held out in appeal. “You have a locked box under your easel. I was, well, not snooping exactly. I was studying your paintings the other morning, and I saw it. I thought maybe you kept the columns there. Editorials about propriety and class and the lack thereof. Topics we reviewed for weeks until I was cross-eyed. You have a reason to despise certain members of society. Exposing rakes in a gossip column is a crafty way to seek revenge. What could Isabella have experienced so far in life that would have her involved in this? Thinking you were the Belle wasn’t the craziest deduction.”

She eyed the box, one of her father’s he’d used for important papers. The rusty lock wasn’t capable of keeping a child out. “They’re sketches, Whitaker. Of you, mostly. I’ve been trying my hand at portraiture, a pastime I’m terminating this very minute. I didn’t want Basil or Bessy to see them should they come up here because you’re unclothed in a few.”

West dropped his head to his hand as his cheeks flooded with color. “I’ve made a mess of this, just like Tristan said I would. I don’t suppose you’re willing to entertain an earnest apology from a broken American.”

“I delight in you and the duke discussing me over drinks at his club.” She picked up a brush and flicked the horsehair bristles across her wrist like a whip. “In addition, you can take your earnest apology and stuff it up your broken arse.”

He sputtered in amusement before masking it. “He’s trying to protect me, Penny. Believe me, he was shocked when he read the solicitor’s note and sorry as hell I was sitting there to read it next.”

“He loves you or is starting to. Yet, you fight him every step of the way.” She slapped the brush to her cupped palm, unable to withstand his distress another second. His gaze had the power to melt her resolve and had on more than one occasion. “If we show affection often enough, despite your rejection, does that prove something to you? The issue is trust, your issue. The problem isn’t with me. It never has been. I put my trust in you the night I arrived with my satchel. It was a yes in more ways than one. But not for you.” She pointed the brush at him like it was loaded with a bullet. “For you, it was only one way.”

Bewilderment shimmered in his eyes. Possibly a saving grace in the long run, his brilliance didn’t apply to all areas. “If you think what’s between us is merely physical”—swallowing, he gave his cravat a hard yank as if the air entering his lungs was scarce—“ hell , I’ve known what I feel longer than you have, I’ll wager.”

The dreamy scenes a young girl holds in her mind—proposals and bent knees and wistful declarations of love—exploded like a kettle over a raging cookfire. “A bet. That’s how you think to finally tell me?”

The brush left her grip to spin across the room and thump him in the shoulder.

It was the best throw of her life.

He blinked, then laughed, blast him, and reached to pick it up. “Sweetheart, calm—”

“You arrogant, smug… oh ,” she raged, beyond piecing together a sensible reply. The dented can was in her hand before she had time to formulate a plan. “ Out !” It hit the doorjamb near his head like a cannon shot, the dirty brushes spitting yellow and crimson paint across him. “Take time with your blasted cat and figure out your life!”

The last projectile, a spatula she used to mix gums, whacked the door he slammed behind him.