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Page 5 of When the Marquess Needed Me (The Rake Chronicles #4)

Chapter Three

“Y ou are not to bed her,” Monty said, the moment after Miss Salisbury made her exit.

Leith had just watched the hem of her white, old-fashioned frock disappear through the door. At first, the words did not penetrate the irritation that fogged his mind.

“What?”

“You are not to bed the woman,” his best friend repeated. “She is young, she is vulnerable, and I am resolute that she should find some other remedy for her problems than selling her body to the syphilitic hounds of the aristocracy.”

“I am touched by your description of me.”

“Present company,” Monty said, waving his hand, but it was barely convincing.

Yes, his best friend was still angry with him indeed.

Even if he wouldn’t upset his wife by admitting it.

“How young?”

“Four-and-twenty,” Olivia said.

Not particularly young, then, but in effect practically an innocent. When one considered her being from the country. He himself was ten years her senior.

“Let there be no confusion. You want me to keep the woman, pay her five hundred pounds, take her on her seven outings as my avowed mistress, and not touch her?”

“Correct.”

Five hundred pounds was double what Leith usually paid a woman for a fortnight of favors. It was an inflated price. Absurd, really. That he wouldn’t even get the basest of pleasures for his trouble—well, if he had taken to Miss Salisbury any more, he might really resent it.

“But you heard her. She wants an education in…the bedchamber.”

To Leith’s chagrin, he could not quite manage Miss Salisbury’s turn of phrase with the same placidity. Damn her.

“Tell her what she wants to know,” Monty spat out. “Surely it is not necessary to demonstrate.”

“We all learn best by doing,” he sneered, unable to help himself.

“Don’t,” Monty glowered. “She is my cousin.”

“Your third cousin. Did you even know of her before yesterday?”

“That hardly matters.”

Leith raised his eyes to the ceiling. Really, Monty’s noble streak as of late had become quite trying.

“If it makes you feel any better, I cannot imagine a lady less to my tastes.”

“That’s ridiculous. She’s beautiful. Anyone can see that,” Olivia objected.

“I suppose she has a certain rustic charm. But my preferences have never run in that direction.”

Olivia and Monty shared a glance.

“What?” he snapped.

Once, it had been he and Monty who shared those types of glances. The kind that spoke without words. Now, it appeared that his best friend only had such an understanding with his wife.

Olivia settled her eyes upon Leith, amusement animating her features.

“Really? You’ve never favored a tall brunette with a touch-me-not air and an ample bosom?”

Leith reared back. He hadn’t thought Olivia capable of such a cold assessment of her own sex—and nor had he realized that Miss Salisbury did rather resemble his usual type.

“She may fit some general description, but truly she is not at all to my tastes.”

“Ample bosom.” Monty chuckled, looking at Olivia with his usual besotted expression. “Really, I don’t think you can say such things of other women, my dear, when your own charms—”

“Please,” Leith broke in, unable to hear what came next, for some reason he couldn’t quite define. “I was just going.”

“Stop, Leith,” Monty said, his expression soft no longer. “I am serious. Do not bed her. It wouldn’t be right.”

He sighed. “What if she insists , Monty? What am I to say? Your cousin will not let me? She has made clear that she doesn’t want you meddling in the affair. If you were going to be so noble, you shouldn’t have made the introduction at all.”

Monty sat back. “Damn, I hadn’t thought of that. That she might insist.”

“I did,” Olivia said, with a smile. “And I agree that would be the result if you told her that we forbade it. So, I suggest that you try something closer to the truth.”

“What is that?”

“Say that you’re only taking her as your mistress as a favor to Monty and that while she is very comely and will no doubt be very much to the tastes of many men, she isn’t to yours. And thus you’d prefer to keep her education theoretical.”

“Dear God, Olivia, I don’t want to hurt the chit’s feelings. Not attractive enough to bed! That’s hardly a gentlemanly sentiment.”

“You will have to be soft in your rejection. And that will give us time to come up with a solution to her financial problems.”

Leith could see Olivia’s point and yet he found himself uneasy at the prospect of having to say such a thing to a woman. And it was not only that—Miss Salisbury had seemed so decided in her course of action that it seemed wrong to lie to her, to not let her make her own decision in this matter, even if the intention was to protect her. Surely, there were men in the aristocracy who did treat their mistresses abominably, but there were others who were decent men and would play the part she sought well.

“As usual, my wife’s judgment is superior to my own.”

Or yours.

Leith heard the words. Monty didn’t need to say them.

“That seems, all in all, the best excuse to tender to Miss Salisbury for why you cannot bed her. As my wife says, you have already said she doesn’t suit you.”

Strangely, now that he had been told he couldn’t bed her, Leith felt less sure about his feelings for the woman.

It was true that he did like tall brunette women with large bosoms and touch-me-not airs.

And he supposed, now that he thought of it, that described Miss Salisbury exactly.

Suddenly, he imagined her kitted out differently—in fashionable dress, her wild hair tamed.

The image stirred him. He couldn’t deny it.

But Leith was in no position to argue with Monty. His best friend already thought him a depraved bastard with no proper feeling for anything other than his own cock.

“Very well,” he said, rising and trying to flash a normal smile. “As you say, it should hardly be a struggle to resist a woman so little to my tastes.”

Leith strode from the room and out the door of Carrington Place to where his own carriage waited in the street.

As he approached, his coachman, Preston, flicked the reins and his footman, Charles, straightened up on the box.

“Charles,” he said, as he approached. “Inside.”

For his entire life, Leith had done everything by the letter. And that letter dictated that the footman rode on the box.

But, as of recent times, he had, increasingly, asked Charles to ride in the carriage with him. Perhaps it was a sign of his age, but he had taken a kind of paternal affection for the boy. After all, he had known Charles, now eighteen, for his entire life, as he was the son of his housekeeper and butler. The boy always seemed so thankful to be taught things about the world which he would, otherwise, never have any chance of knowing.

And Leith was aware, albeit somewhat dimly, that he had come to confide in Charles in a way that, perhaps, it had been difficult to do with his friends since their marriages.

“Was it a good visit with the earl and his lady, sir?” Charles said, once he closed the door after himself.

Charles was fairly innocent, as far as Leith could tell. And, in his opinion, it was better to keep him that way. But, of course, he knew of Leith’s mistresses, so he was not completely blinkered.

“Not precisely, Charles. I will have a new mistress at the St. James’s house. And not one of my own choosing.”

“That seems very strange, sir.”

“Yes, it is bound to be. But it could not be avoided.”

“Is that so, sir?”

“Unfortunately. The earl is a close friend of mine and well—have you ever quarreled with a friend, Charles?”

Charles looked at him, his earnest expression pensive for a moment. “Of course, sir. Once, my best mate, Jack, kissed my sweetheart, Lillian.”

These types of admissions were why Leith appreciated Charles. Sometimes, when he was riding around, he wanted to focus on something else besides the whirring of his own thoughts. And Charles had no shortage of lively anecdotes.

“What did you do to rectify the matter?”

“I hit him, of course, sir. And gave him a right bloody lip. And wrote Lillian off as a bad business.”

“Are you still friends with this Jack?”

“Of course, sir. He’s my best mate. We’ve been best friends since we were babies. And he had only made one mistake. Lillian is very pretty. And she admitted she tried to kiss him first.”

“Mm, it does sound that Jack was rather cornered, then.”

“He was, sir.” Charles paused. “But I doubt you are punching the earl in the mouth. Lords are far too high for such behavior.”

“You would be wrong there, Charles. Many lords have come to fisticuffs over women.”

Leith remembered that, not long ago, Monty had him by the throat in Breminster House. The rage in his eyes when he had discovered what Leith had done all those years ago—he didn’t think he would ever forget it. At one point, Leith had been sure that his best friend was going to kill him.

“Did you quarrel with the earl over a Lillian, sir?”

“Not exactly,” Leith said, thinking that, perhaps, he had been too open-handed with Charles in this matter. He didn’t particularly want to explain to the boy what he had done with Olivia and Monty all those years ago, after all. “But I—I owe him a debt. And he asked me to make this woman—you’ll soon meet her—my mistress.”

“What is she like, sir?”

“She’s from the country.”

“Well, then, we must show her the best of London.”

Unaccountably, Leith found himself moved by this kind, innocent sentiment.

Had he ever been as na?ve and sweet as Charles? he wondered.

He remembered being his age, of course. But, unless he was mistaken, he had been nowhere near as good as Charles, who appeared to naturally harbor kinder sentiments than Leith at any age.

“Yes,” he said, thinking that, perhaps, he could follow Monty’s edict and merely show Miss Salisbury a pleasant time about the city. “Perhaps we shall.”