The Elusive Lord Everhart: The Rakes of Fallow Hall Series Page 4

  “What a lovely thought. You would make a very good companion for me, cousin,” Pamela said, offering a regal smile.

  Calliope bit back a rise of annoyance. “You are too kind. Though now that I think on it, I would enjoy reading to you.”

  “I’m afraid Mother moved the letter.” Pamela smoothed her hands over the velvet. “She worried that distraction was hindering my recovery.”

  “I’d be more than happy to retrieve it for you, if you would but direct me.”

  “Perhaps one of the servants knows where it is.” Her cousin flitted her fingers toward the opposite end of the room and closed her eyes. “Oh, I have done too much. The weariness is overtaking me. I must rest. Please consider staying, cousin.”

  Consider staying? Here, to act as companion to her cousin? Absolutely not.

  Not to mention, staying would nearly demand that she engage in conversation with Brightwell eventually.

  She couldn’t possibly stay. And yet—at the risk of sounding very much like a character in one of her novels—she wanted to see that letter more than life itself.

  Out in the hall, Calliope released her pent-up frustration in a growl. In the next instant, she heard an answering chuckle. Rafe Danvers stood down the corridor, angling his head to light a cheroot from one of the wall sconces.

  “Pleasant visit with your cousin, Miss Croft?” He paused from smiling only long enough to draw on his cheroot, making the end glow bright orange.

  Embarrassed at being caught with her guard down, she lifted a hand to her neck. “Very, but I find that my throat is quite dry from all the . . . conversation.” She cleared it in an imitation of the growl, on the off chance that he’d believe her.

  His smile told her he didn’t. Much to his credit, however, he didn’t challenge her either. “I know of a perfect remedy. If you will allow me to show you the way.” He gestured with his cheroot toward a turn off the main hallway.

  “Time seems to have gotten the better of me,” Calliope said. “I imagine the supper hour has long since ended. Are my brother and sister-in-law in the parlor now?”

  “They retired to their rooms not long ago. I’m afraid we spoke exhaustively on the topics of town, pugilism, and the apparent felicity of marriage.” He said the last in wry humor, his mouth puffing out a ring of smoke.

  Calliope was little acquainted with Rafe Danvers but knew enough that he was a confirmed bachelor. While the tragic circumstance of his wedding—or lack thereof—had happened a year prior to her debut, it had still been the foremost gossip on everyone’s lips. Yet because he remained apart from most of genteel society, she’d had little chance to know him. Certainly not enough to add his character classification to her once-thorough list.

  Hmm . . . Rafe Danvers did not have a completed page in her book. With his wavy dark hair and the short side-whiskers trimmed at an angle, defining the line of his cheeks and jaw, he certainly possessed the appearance of a romantic hero. Considering his dreadful history, however, she doubted he was the scribe of those infamous letters. Still, she couldn’t pass up an opportunity to inquire.

  “Earlier, my cousin was speaking of a letter she’d received.” Calliope studied him askance, watching for any sign of artifice that would suggest he was guarding a secret. So far, nothing in his countenance betrayed him. “I’m certain she would enjoy reading it again, but I was unable to find it.”

  “Tell me, Miss Croft . . . ” He stopped at the threshold of a pair of open French doors and squinted at her as if she’d presented him with an unsolvable puzzle. “Women tend to read letters over and over—some gentlemen too, I suspect—but the content therein never changes. I see no purpose in it, unless one is of a mind to find flaws or twist the meaning of each phrase into something that was never intended.”

  Calliope laughed. “I see your point. I have found myself in an argument with ink and paper at times. Yet you are forgetting one immeasurably important fact. The power of a well-written letter can be as transformative as a chrysalis. Emerge from it, and the world is new and vibrant in a way you never imagined.”

  Rafe Danvers shook his head. “There is more power in speaking face-to-face,” he said firmly—conviction enough for her to completely cross him off the list.

  1. He did not possess a poet’s soul.

  2. There was no undisguised yearning in his gaze.

  3. Not even a hint of an inclination to marry.

  4. His vehemence on their topic suggested a passionate nature. That passion, however, was not directed toward her.

  She didn’t even bother to check for ink stains on his fingertips.

  Now, back to the matter at hand. “You are quite right, I am sure,” she offered. “But there are those of us—my cousin included—who reread letters to ensure our connection with others is never severed. It’s an ongoing conversation, even though we may be miles apart. So you see, it is imperative that I find that letter.”

  Inside the room, something crashed to the floor with a loud clanging sound. “Bugger it all,” quickly followed.

  Rafe Danvers chuckled as he glanced into the room. “That would be Everhart. He’s recently become quite clumsy.”

  Surprise jolted through Calliope at the mention of Everhart’s name. Though why she should feel alarm when she was already aware of the inhabitants of the manor, she didn’t know. Well, perhaps she did. The truth was, the last time she’d seen him, he’d made it quite clear that he disapproved of her treatment of Brightwell. More to the point, he did not like her at all.

  “Have the two of you been introduced?” Danvers asked with a decidedly devilish grin as he gestured for her to precede him into the room. “Of course you have. How silly of me.”

  While Calliope didn’t know her escort all that well, from experiences with her own family she knew what mischief looked like. The only thing was, she didn’t understand the reason behind his.

  “Yes. We’ve been introduced,” she said with trepidation. Crossing the threshold, she didn’t know if Everhart’s resentment toward her had lessened since their last encounter, nearly five years ago at Bath.

  The man in question was now bent at the waist and playing tug-of-war with a monstrously large dog over a baguette. The lean, gray beast gave a low growl, but the ferocity of it was undermined by his wildly thumping tail.

  On the opposite end of the loaf, Everhart’s scowl was genuine. Beneath a crown of short-cropped flaxen hair, his tawny brows drew together. The sharp angles of his nose, cheekbone, and jaw appeared hard as granite, and faint crescent-moon lines tightened the flesh at the corners of his well-defined mouth. Even in anger, it was impossible to dispute the fact that he was the most handsome man in all of England. Perhaps even the world.

  Then again, she’d always had a foolishly romantic view of the world.

  The exchange between man and beast only lasted a minute, each straining for a baguette that surprisingly did not give way. Everhart’s dark blue evening coat did nothing to disguise the lean musculature of his shoulders, arms, back, and even farther down to the outline of his thighs straining against the dove gray breeches and to his calves—

  Seeing the thick splint encasing his lower leg, she started.

  “You’re injured,” she said, her voice louder than she expected. Loud enough to draw Everhart’s attention and cause him to lose the battle.

  The dog scrambled back and then gave the loaf a vigorous shake, the ends of his short floppy ears swaying. On the floor between them was an empty silver platter, a knife, and a hunk of blue-veined cheese.

  “Everhart’s a veritable invalid,” Rafe Danvers said with a laugh. “So much for our evening snack, though.”

  Calliope couldn’t look away from the man across the room. She felt . . . arrested more than alarmed, as if every one of her organs had ceased functioning. Her breathing halted. Her heart sputtered. Her eyes could no longer blink. She simply stood there, staring at the splint and then up to those blue-green eyes. Eyes that had once shown her so much censure for r
efusing his friend’s proposal. Those eyes did not hold censure now but something equally as intense, though she could not name it.

  “Miss Croft,” Everhart said by way of greeting, his voice low and clipped. His gaze snapped to Danvers with what looked to be annoyance, and then back to her. “I trust you’ve found your cousin well?”

  She nodded, and with that simple motion, her heart started to beat again and her lungs expanded. “I have, thank you. It was very kind of you to allow her and her husband sanctuary here for her recuperation. Especially when it is apparent that you require rest as well.”

  “It is nothing—more nuisance than injury.” He waved in a gesture of dismissal. “I apologize for the state of the room and for the loss of the ‘evening snack,’ as Danvers said. We have made it somewhat a habit to have our bread and cheese here in the evening. While the bread is usually inedible, the cheese is quite—”

  The instant he said the word, the dog loped over, snatched the large hunk with his teeth, and gobbled it up in no more than two bites. Then, as if in thanks, the gray beast nudged Everhart’s hand with his nose, earning an absent scratch behind the ears.

  “He rather likes cheese.” Everhart shrugged, his tone no longer clipped but instead laced with the easy fluidity that one adopted with friends. She liked this far more than his censure.

  Her lips drew up into a smile. “Apparently. What is his name?”

  “So far, he has four: Boris, Reginald, James, and Brutus. The last was given to him by your aunt when she’d caught him in the vicinity of her small dogs and summarily declared him a brute.”

  Calliope could easily imagine the shrieking that must have accompanied such a name. Her aunt tended to coddle those she loved to the point of giving way to snobbery. The same could not be said of Boris Reginald James Brutus, who thumped his tail soundly on the floor in blissful surrender to the scratching behind his ears, his tongue lolling to one side. “Which of the names did you assign him?”

  “None,” Everhart supplied. “I simply call him Dog, unless I am cross with him and then I call him Duke.” A telling remark from the son of the Duke of Heathcoat, but she knew better than to comment. All the same, a look in Everhart’s gaze and the quirk of his lips seemed to possess insight into her thoughts.

  “You must admit, Miss Croft,” Rafe Danvers said beside her, startling her with his presence, for she had nearly forgotten he was there, “that he rather looks like a Boris.”

  She made an effort to pull her gaze away from Everhart to answer. “Perhaps it would be better to ask the dog to see which name he prefers.”

  “That’s the thing,” Danvers said with a shake of his head. “He doesn’t yield to any of those names. We have spent too much time trying to persuade him, I suppose, and now he believes we are all idiots for not knowing what to call him.”

  Calliope laughed. “Then perhaps Duke is the perfect name for him.”

  “He won’t respond to that either.” Everhart’s smirk turned into a lazy grin as he continued to watch her. His blue-green gaze seemed to shimmer in the same way a ray of light glanced across jewels, disorienting her for an instant.

  She’d forgotten the seductive power he held in a single look. That same look had inspired her to write four full-page lists in her journal on him. For a time, she’d actually had him at the top of her list for possible Casanova candidates. But in the end, when he’d scolded her so harshly for refusing Brightwell, she’d realized her mistake. He’d only tolerated her company out of deference to his friend.

  Remembering that event now helped her break the spell she was under. She blinked and took a step back for good measure.

  “Then perhaps I will come up with a name to give him before I leave in the morning. For now, I must bid each of you a good night.” She inclined her head to Danvers and offered something of a curtsy to Everhart, but without meeting his gaze again, and summarily left the room.

  Halfway to her own chamber, she realized that she’d forgotten to ask Everhart about Pamela’s letter.

  Tearing his gaze away from Calliope Croft’s retreating figure, Gabriel held himself in check. When he’d heard her say “It is imperative that I find that letter” to Danvers in the hall, he hadn’t been sure he would be able to.

  Gabriel wanted to forget about Calliope’s letter. Forget about all letters—especially the one he’d written to Pamela. What a horrendous debacle that was. Right now, he needed to move on with the simple, unfettered life to which he’d grown accustomed.

  Knowing that Danvers was scrutinizing his every gesture and expression at that very moment, he refused to reveal the relief he felt at having survived this encounter. Both Montwood and Danvers had once taunted him by claiming they knew his tell when he gambled, but neither had told him what it was. Therefore, in order to keep himself from giving anything away, he turned to pet the dog with more affection than the beast deserved.

  “You have spoiled my supper, Dog,” he said with one final pat to the side of his neck. The bread wasn’t a great loss, but the cheese had come from their remarkably efficient head butler—private pantry and would have been marvelous with a glass of port.

  Summarily dismissed, the dog loped over to the hearth, turned around three times, and plopped down onto the floor, wholly unconcerned over the reprimand.

  Danvers leaned a hip against the side of a wing-backed chair opposite the sofa. “I must admit, that encounter left me with a modicum of doubt. Earlier with Croft, you were decidedly unsettled, but just now, you seemed moderately at ease.”

  “When you expected disaster?” Relief swept through Gabriel, though outwardly he remained the same. “As I mentioned, you had no reason to make such grand assumptions regarding our wager. If I displayed a measure of unease before, it was because I’d been rather unkind to Miss Croft when last we met. She’d abused my friend’s affections, and I might have been too harsh. In learning she was here, I merely wanted to avoid any need to discuss prior events again. You know how I detest apologizing for my actions.”

  “True.” Danvers seemed to take this explanation as fact. “You are fortunate in the fact that Miss Croft appeared not to have been scarred by the previous encounter. In fact, I wonder if she remembered you at all.”

  Oh, she remembered him. Gabriel had seen it quite clearly in her slow perusal of his form and the utterly beguiling way she’d held his gaze. “I always took you for a hunter, Danvers. Instead you are dangling bait before me like a fisherman,” he said with a chuckle. “I suggest you focus your plotting elsewhere.”

  “Yes. Perhaps, you are right. I wonder if Montwood would be taken in by her. I should arrange for a meeting to determine if—” Danvers stopped. A wide grin broke over his face.

  Damn. Gabriel felt a muscle twitching in his jaw before he’d had the chance to control it. Was that his tell, he wondered? He could hardly think straight. At the moment, all he could see was the all-too-charming Montwood alone with Calliope.

  That would never happen. Ever. Not if he could help it.

  “A fisherman, indeed.” Danvers sketched a courtly bow.

  “Be careful that someone does not put a hole in your boat or net,” Gabriel warned. “Our wager is for friendly purposes and not designed to ruin the reputations of our guests. Or had you forgotten?”

  Danvers’s only response was a hearty laugh as he left the room.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I’m so very sorry, Brightwell. I cannot marry you.”

  Calliope watched Brightwell’s pale, unremarkable features turn hard. She’d expected nothing less after refusing his proposal. But instead of questioning her further, he took her answer and simply left her on the terrace, disappearing into the cold darkness of the Randalls’ garden. Perhaps he’d noticed how distracted she’d been of late—ever since she’d received that letter.

  Before stepping back inside the ballroom, she lifted her gloved hands to her cheeks to check for any sign of wetness. There was none. Surely, she should be crumbling into tears. Brightwe
ll deserved proof that he meant something to her, didn’t he? And yet, while she felt sadness at knowing she was losing a dear friend and hurting him as well, most of all she felt relieved because he hadn’t demanded to know why she had refused him.

  After all, she couldn’t have told him that she’d fallen in love with a letter, could she?

  Preoccupied by her thoughts, she walked through the veil of diaphanous curtains hanging from the top of the archway. A sweeping melody rose above the crowd of dancers. The strains of violin and cello mingled with the sway and swish of pastel silk skirts, and somehow the combination caused a terrible yearning in her heart. It ached from being empty. She longed for the man she loved to fill the void.

  Everhart suddenly appeared in front of her. Without asking permission, he seized her hand and pulled her into the waltz.

  In no mood for dancing, she prepared a set-down, willing to leave him stranded on the floor this very instant. Yet the intensity in his gaze kept her silent. The power of it coursed through her as if the ground were quaking at her feet, preparing to swallow her into the depths of the earth. She was unable to look away.

  They were friends, or at least they were among a small circle of friends. He smiled and laughed easily with the others. But not with her. He always looked at her as if he disapproved of her. Perhaps he’d guessed that her heart was not set on his friend.

  Gazes locked, they swept turn by turn throughout the ballroom, as if all the other dancers had disappeared. When it ended, she’d stood in his arms for a moment too long. Her breath rushed over her parted lips. For all the world, it looked like he was going to kiss her. Right there and then—

  Calliope awoke with a start.

  Breathing heavily, she sat up and looked around the room. The golden brocade bed curtains and satin coverlet were unfamiliar. She wasn’t sure where she was. But wait. Oh. Then it came to her: Fallow Hall, Pamela, Brightwell, Everhart, and quite possibly . . . a Casanova letter.