Page 30 of The Hellion is Tamed
Humphrey slapped the bottle on the sideboard, slanted a swift look at Julian, then poured a generous drink. “That pisspot of a neighborhood? What the ever-loving saints is he doing down there? After all the bother we went to getting himout.”
“Can’t help myself,” Simon murmured, pulling himself up on the sofa. He braced his arm on the brocade cushion to steady himself, swaying. “How long have you known about Josie?”
Julian’s hand stilled, his smile, Simon wasn’t surprised to note, lethal. “Since the first time you went. What were you, Mac? Fourteen?”
“Thirteen,” Simon echoed in a leaden tone, chafing, as he always did, under the protective burden of his eldest brother. He should’ve known his nickname, his charitable venture, his entirelife, would come as no surprise to Julian Alexander.
Nothing got by Viscount Beauchamp when it came to his family. Nothing.
“Thirteen.” Julian used his thumb to soften a stroke in his sketch. “I must have missed a year then.”
“I can’t forget where I came from, Jules, like you, Humphrey and Finn have been able to. My past haunts me worse than Henry”—he nodded to the ghost who sat in friendly contemplation on the other end of the sofa—“ever could.”
Julian scratched his jaw, leaving a charcoal streak on his cheek. “Who said anything about forgetting? Your problem isacceptance. Connecting that life to this one. That’s the only thing we’re better at, Simon. Or maybe it’s because we’re older. I was about your age when I finally forgave myself for my past mistakes and embraced a future with Piper.”
“Who is Mac?” Finn slid sideways in the chair, his lids lowering. “No, don’t bother. I’ll read your mind and find out.”
“I’d love to have the sofa to myself, if you don’t mind,” Simon told Henry, stretching out when the haunt moved to sit next to Finn. The bountiful amount of gin he’d imbibed was tilting his world almost as much as Emma’s enthusiastic kiss.
He’d never had a difficult time breaking away from an embrace. Evading a passionate situation he’d discovered he’d rather not be in once the kissing started. Theirs hadn’t been a situation he wanted to extricate himself from.At all.Instead, for one frenzied second, he’d considered pressing her down on that godawful pile of coats and climbing atop her.
Something one did with a lightskirt, not the woman you suspected you were falling in love with.
Or, rather, had never fallenoutof love with.
A woman who, from her artless but picture-perfect kiss, you presumed was a virgin.
Simon had steered clear of inexperienced women and had no clue how to handle one.
Julian angled the sketchpad, frowned, added another stroke. “I’ve come to believe love is a pursuit for wholeness. Not to sound overly sentimental, but the other half you’re so damned incomplete without. Piper helped me to not only find myself and control my gift but to accept what I couldn’t change. Accept who Iwas. But I had to locate the courage to take what she offered. Strong women don’t make it easy, Si. And they don’t give up. But if you want love and intimacy and friendship, the entire package, you’re going to have to work for it. Not be terrified by the promise ofmore.”
“This isn’t love.” Simon stretched long on the sofa, hiking his booted feet atop the armrest, staring at the ceiling in place of meeting Julian’s probing gaze, the lie he’d uttered reverberating in his chest. “It’s obligation. Since you know my secrets, lord and master, consider it another rescue mission, this one simply retrieving someone from the past instead of down St Giles way.”
Humphrey snorted and popped his glass to the sideboard with a bang. “God almighty, youth is wasted on pups.” Simon heard a clank as he poured, bouncing the neck of the bottle off the rim of the glass. “You dunce. It’s been love since that chit first burst into our bizarre world and sent a duchess tumbling from her mare and into the dirt. With a duke riding up seconds after to save her, white knight extraordinaire. Put their love affair into motion that very day. The duchess should be thanking Emmaline Breslin for the assist, which may be why Delaney has such a blinding inclination to make your girl over. Turn her into a bashful cousin come to Town set to turn thetonon its ear.”
Simon stacked his arms beneath his head, his fingers itching to slip something from one of the men in the room into his pocket. “Myidea to style her as a duke’s cousin. Inspired by Julian, of course, and his sound work on Finn and me.”
“Brilliant, your plan. I can see the advantage. Now that she’s here, your wandering girl, after youbroughther to our time at great risk to yourself, you’ve decided you don’t want her?” Humphrey released a deafening exhalation and began to crack his knuckles. “I feel like coming over there and knocking you upside the head.”
Simon slanted a watery, one-eyed gaze Humphrey’s way, the room spinning sluggishly around him. He was likely going to embarrass himself by hurling in the rubbish bin sitting beneath his desk, and likely soon. “What are you so furious about? Emma’s maturing into a society miss before our eyes. Flipped a curtsey at Mackey tonight that would have made Victoria cry. Her speech is improving, mostly. She waltzes as well as a debutante. All she needs now are a few inane topics to prattle on about, watercolors and fashion and the like, and we’ll be golden.”
“What about your time thief and that daffy maid of hers racing into the past, then coming back banged up and bloodied?” Humphrey halted his knuckle-popping long enough to pour another drink, crystal clanking. “Golden? Since when? Adept at getting the traveling chit to keep her rabid opinions to herself, are you? According to Delaney, she’s got about anounceof submissiveness in her, maybe less. Another fiery woman we’re inviting into the League, heaven help us.”
Finn yawned and slid lower in his chair. “Fiery ones are the only ones welike.”
“What if she’s an unqualified success?” Julian asked quietly, the suggestion exploding like a firecracker thrown into the middle of a church service.
Simon rolled to a shaky sit, a headache beginning to thud behind his left temple. “Meaning?”
“Emma’s introduction to society, if Ashcroft’s ball goes as planned, will lead to invitations. More balls, teas, musicales. The opera. Walks through Hyde Park. Epsom Derby, anyone? Perhaps a proposal. Isn’t a strange notion for a beautiful woman, cousin to a duke, to receive one. And matrimony is where most roads in society lead. If anyone can keep her in 1882 long enough to marry her, that is.” Julian tapped his pencil on his thigh and tried to act coy, like he wasn’t presenting the topic to make Simon think. The old guess-you-haven’t-thought-of-this-but-your-big-brother-has ploy.
“Being a success in society is bloody dreadful,” Finn murmured, the only one of them, due to his astounding good looks, who could be considered a moderate success in theton.
The nagging itch started between Simon’s shoulder blades. Setting his jaw, he glanced around for something to steal and seeing nothing—because everything in the room was already his—dug a half crown from his pocket and twirled it unsteadily between his fingers.
Emma. Married. And not to him.
“No comment?” Julian murmured.