Aurelia’s smile turned brittle at that remark, but she held it in place.
Mama focused her attention on her. “I’m satisfied that the boys will be fine . . . but I worry for you, Aurelia. I’ve done my best to lead you. To help you find a good husband.” She sighed and looked tired then. Every bit of her years. “It has been for naught. My efforts have produced no results—”
“Mama—”
She hushed Aurelia with fingers to her lips. “So, now I shall cease my efforts. I’m finished. I’m not telling you this out of anger or to make you feel badly, my dear.” With a final pat, she released her hands. “It’s your turn to decide what you want in life. And whatever you decide, it’s up to you to make it happen.”
Aurelia stared, not even recognizing the woman before her as her mother . . . or the words that were coming from her mouth as anything her mother would ever say.
Mama squared her shoulders. “I’m leaving at the end of the Season.”
“L-Leaving?” Aurelia stammered.
“For Scotland.” She took a deep breath, as though the action somehow fortified her. “I’m going to live with Aunt Daphne. I will not force you to join me, but the alternative . . .”
The alternative was as plain as the nose on her face. If she did not accompany her mother, she would remain here, a yoke about Will’s neck. No, Mama would not force her, but she knew Aurelia would accompany her rather than be a burden.
Aurelia could say nothing for long moments. Mama’s words rolled through her, penetrating gradually like rocks settling into silt. She suddenly felt . . . alone. More alone than she had ever felt before. Mama had made this decision without her.
Her mouth worked, searching for speech. They had always jested about living with Aunt Daphne some day, but she had never thought Mama serious. Her mother loved London too much. Her friends, Society and all its amusements. Even when they retired to Merlton Hall during the winter months, there was much Society in the country—a good deal more than they would find in the small corner of Scotland where Aunt Daphne resided. Surely Mama realized that?
Aurelia shook her head slowly, determined that Mama did understand it. “Aunt Daphne lives in the middle of nowhere . . .”
“There is Society there . . . in a manner. Thurso will be a quieter pace, to be certain, but enough for me. It’s time. I can’t stay here. It’s not right. I need to let Will and Violet have their turn. It’s only right that they start their family without me underfoot.”
Or me.
She didn’t say it, but Mama thought it. She felt it. As did Aurelia. She had been feeling it before, but now with Will and Violet’s good news, it was only more evident. The three of them were a family. Will, Violet, and the baby. It was time for both Mama and her to go.
Her mother moved for the door. “I shall leave at the end of the Season.” Her words rang with a finality that left no doubt in Aurelia’s mind she had decided.
She slipped from the room with a whisper of muslin. Aurelia uttered not a word, her mind spinning, thinking of her fate. She should leave with Mama. That much was clear. It was the right thing to do. The kindest thing for Will and Violet.
Another sudden realization jarred her. She would not be able to continue her drawing. At least not in the same way. Life in Town provided endless inspiration. There was endless material to be gleaned from members of the ton. She would not find such inspiration in Thurso. And even if she did, there would be no opportunities to share her caricatures. No more leaving them all about to be discovered. Thurso was but a small hamlet. She would be discovered if she even attempted it once.
An ache started at the center of her chest.
She had convinced herself she was making a difference. Perhaps it was arrogant of her to think she held such influence, but she thought she was giving a voice to the voiceless. With the exception of her first caricature, she used her skill, attempting to shed light on the transgressions that occurred every day throughout Society. An earl being overly free with his hands. An old dame spreading ugly rumors. A groom publicly mistreated by his employer. All of that she would lose if she left with Mama.
Unless she came up with a plan. Another way to remove herself from her brother’s house that did not require moving to Thurso.
A small knock preceded Cecily’s return to her chamber. “Aurelia?” she said as she came up behind her and began brushing her hair. “Is everything . . . well?”
She nodded numbly. Everything would be fine. She fixed a wobbly smile to her lips. She merely had to adjust her objectives and accept a husband. It wasn’t as though she was opposed to marriage. She just had never been very welcoming to prospective suitors. She simply had hoped for . . . more. Perhaps too much. Marriage to a man whose kiss did not make her want to wipe her mouth off afterward. She had admired her fair share of gentlemen. But all from afar. No one even potentially desirable had ever paid court to her. Her lack of dowry and rumors of her caustic wit ostensibly did not help in that endeavor.
Cecily gave up pressing her further for information and helped ready her for bed, casting her concerned looks.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” Aurelia promised, feeling suddenly weary. “Good night.”
Nodding, Cecily dimmed the light and slipped from the chamber.
Alone again, Aurelia slid beneath the cool sheets of her bed and tucked her hands behind her head, staring into the shadowy recesses of the room, her mind backtracking over all the gentlemen who had approached her over the last few seasons—regrettably, a short list—and wondering if she should have given them more encouragement. She now wondered if any one of them might have suited. She was no grand prize, to be certain, but perhaps one of them could have made her happy. And she him.
Perhaps it wasn’t too late to try.
Chapter 5
Max had not made it two steps from the drawing room before Will and Declan waylaid him. With a clap on his shoulder, Will motioned in the direction of his office. “Come. Let us have a word.”
He hesitated only a moment. His friends no longer kept late hours. They were thoroughly domesticated. Gone were the days when they stayed out all night and returned home at dawn. A late night for them consisted of dinner before retiring to bed with their wives. Besotted. The both of them.
His parents had been that way. His father had often chased his mother into their bedchamber, their laughter ringing down the corridor for all to hear. At the time, such love seemed a beautiful thing, if not slightly embarrassing. For the most part, though . . . it had been beautiful. Those were happy times. He and his sister felt lucky having parents so happy and in love. Life had been good. Rich and full of color. Until the accident, and then that love became dangerous. Killing the weak. Robbing his world of color and painting it in strokes of gray.
Max learned from his father’s mistake. Love made one weak. It was a serpent in the grass, ready to strike when one was vulnerable. He would not be like his father and give himself so wholly to a woman. That path led to destruction. And why should he change his ways? He was perfectly content with things as they were now. There was simplicity in his existence. Freedom. No responsibility. No duty to anyone except himself.
Will’s office was unchanged since his marriage. It was still masculine, with dark tones and rich colors. Max felt the most comfortable in this room. His entire town house was outfitted in much the same manner. Dark woods. Dark drapes. Functional.
“What is this, boys?” Max demanded lightly, falling back on the leather sofa. “Your wives have no need of you tonight?”
It was a jab, to be certain, and he didn’t know why he’d said it. He supported his friends. He wanted them happy. He was fond of their wives and wished them only well. He’d even been instrumental in Will and Violet’s union.
“At the moment, our most pressing concern is you,” Declan answered evenly, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Is it? That’s kind of you, but I’ll be fine.” He worked his jaw gingerly and tested the tender flesh of his lips with his fingertips. “Nothing that won’t heal.” He might very well bruise. Who knew Arlington had it in him? The nobleman spent more time at the gaming hells than in the company of his young bride. A sore point for Lady Opheila—and one she had complained about frequently. Not just to Max, but to anyone within her sphere.
Max did not often dally with married ladies. There were plenty of other willing females. Widows, maids, independent females that did not bow to Society’s rules. But Lady Arlington had been lovely and ripe for the picking . . . and most insistent that she be picked.
He smiled, and winced at the motion. Lightly prodding his aching face, he crossed his booted ankles and stretched his legs out before him. His friends gazed at him like a morose pair of monks. “You’re staring at me like I’m the recalcitrant child and you both the stern parents.”
“Then I suggest you heed us as you would a set of parents. It’s time for you to grow up, Max.”
He blinked at Will’s clipped words. He resisted the urge to reply that he was quite grown up. That he had been grown up ever since he was eleven years old and his mother and sister died. Ever since his father, crazed with grief, put a bullet in his head. The loss of his mother and sister had been tragedy enough, but walking into his father’s bedchamber and finding him in a pool of blood and brain matter, his pistol still smoking next to him, had effectively killed what remained of his childhood.
He said nothing, however. He never spoke of that time—that day. Not even to his closet friends. It was enough that they knew his father took his life. All of the ton knew that, and looked at him as though he were somehow tainted. Those who had known his father saw him every time they looked at him. Max knew he was the mirror image of the man. Everyone saw Lord Kenneth Camden when they looked at him, and they wondered if he was equally fragile, if he would one day cave and surrender to weakness, crumble in the face of loss and adversity.
Max saw that question in their eyes—even now, when he worked so hard to distance himself from the specter of his father and to live a life as differently as possible.
He maintained his relaxed pose, but responded with an edge to his voice. “Grow up, hm? And I suppose marriage is the way to accomplish that? What? You’ve both gotten yourselves leg-shackled and now you expect me to as well?”
Will and Dec exchanged looks. “We can’t have incidents like tonight occurring—”
Max laughed and held up a hand in supplication. “Come now. It was a little amusing, was it not?”
They stared back at him, their expressions stone-faced.
His own smile slipped and he sighed. “You would have found it so once. Marriage has rid you both of your humor.”
“Someone could have been hurt, Max. What if Arlington came here with a pistol? Have you considered that?” Dec demanded. “Ladies were present. My wife was here—”
“As was mine,” Will interjected, his face flushed. “And she’s with child.”
Max dragged a hand through his hair, feeling like the veriest wretch right then. “Of course. They should not have been subjected to such . . . barbarism.” Not Rosalie or Violet. Not Lady Peregrine—she had been like a mother to him since his own died. Not even Aurelia—for all that she probably enjoyed witnessing him getting struck in the face. “Perhaps I should keep my distance?” he asked. “I’ll see you both at our clubs or—”
“That’s not what we’re saying, you idiot,” Dec snapped. “We don’t want to cast you out of our lives. We simply want you to stop your philandering ways and—”
“I’ll not marry—”
“We bloody well understand that. Take a mistress, then. Cease dallying with married women . . . cease flitting from woman to woman like you require a new flavor every day of the week.”
“Max,” Will said earnestly. “I’ve never known you to be with the same woman more than once.”
“That’s not true. There was . . .” He paused, thinking. “ . . . Margaret.” He stopped. “Wait, no.” Their trysts had totaled two times. It had just taken a little longer to woo the actress into his bed.
“See there,” Will announced.
“I cannot help it that I bore easily.” He wasn’t about to confess that he refused to get attached to any single female. He knew love existed. He’d been witness to it. He’d been a part of it. And then he’d stood by as it was lost. As it destroyed everything in his life. He simply took precautions against letting it happen to him.
“We’re simply asking that you behave more responsibly.”
They were asking for more than that. Perhaps they didn’t realize it, but he did. They were asking him to change. He didn’t have the heart to tell them that he couldn’t. That he wouldn’t.
Staring at his friends, he realized this was the beginning of the end. The three of them had been together all these years, but they would never be the way they used to be. Will and Dec loved nothing more than their wives. Will was going to be a father. Dec would soon follow in his footsteps. His friends were moving in another direction.
He was on his own now.
Max departed the office half an hour after Will and Dec left him there. He saw no sense in letting good brandy go to waste, so he remained, finishing his drink and having another one before rising to leave. He supposed this would be his lot now. Ending his nights alone, drinking in the shadows of a fire-lit room.
Stepping out into the corridor, he cursed the near darkness. Apparently the household had retired for the night, forgetting that he lingered in its expanding silence. Or perhaps they were so exasperated with his behavior and the spectacle he had created this evening that no one cared if he stumbled about in the dark and made it home to his bed or not. That sounded about right. Friends with their own lives to attend. No wife. No mistress. No one to give a damn.
He made his way down the long corridor, seeing a faint glimmer of light at the end, where the hallway opened up to the stairs that wound down into the foyer. Before Will or Dec married, they would have just been getting a start at this hour. Domesticated bliss. He snorted. They could have it. Perhaps he should make a visit to Sodom. The night would just be getting started there.
Rounding the corner, he collided with another body, smaller than his own. His chin struck something hard and he cursed, pain rocketing along his already tender jaw. He instinctively reached out to steady the body. A female, he knew at once. His hands slid around her back, bringing her closer. Even in a dimly lit corridor, he identified the softness of her form, the flowery fragrance of hair, the sweet catch of her breath.
Perhaps it was his mood. The nip of loneliness chasing him after being reprimanded by his friends. He flexed his fingers against her back. The thin cotton of a nightgown filled his palms. Womanly hips nestled against his hardness and his cock stirred.
He narrowed his gaze, peering through the gloom, sweeping over the fall of unbound hair, darkly rich and long. Neither Rosalie nor Violet possessed hair so dark. Instantly assured of that, he permitted his hands to travel slowly up her back.
“My apologies,” he murmured, his fingers playing along the line of her spine. A servant girl not abed, then. Perhaps she would be amenable to his company.
“Max?”
He froze, recognition slicing through him. No . . .
He closed a hand on her arm and dragged her toward the top of the stairs where the light bled brighter from a nearby sconce.
“Aurelia.” He breathed her name like an epithet and quickly dropped his hand from her as though burned.
A quick survey confirmed she was indeed only wearing a night rail. The loose garment concealed her from neck to ankle, but he was acutely aware that only a thin veil of lawn covered her curves.
Swallowing a curse, he jerked his gaze back to her face, wishing he could unsee her body. Unfeel it. ??
?Why are you not abed?” he demanded.
He glanced left and right as though expecting her brother to materialize from the woodwork. Rubbing a hand at the back of his neck, he tried to shut off his awareness of her standing before him in only a thin layer of fabric.
“Me? This is my h-home.” She stammered a bit at this last word, as though it stuck in her throat. “Why are you still here?”
“Merely took a moment to lick my wounds after a set-down from your brother and cousin.”
“Oh.”
“ ‘Oh’? Is that all you have to say? I thought you would relish that. No applause, brat? No words of smug satisfaction? I know how much you enjoy knocking me down a peg.”
She shook her head, and the light from the sconce caught in her hair, gilding it to fire in certain spots.
Against his will, his gaze skimmed her body again. Heat flamed his face as he noted the swell of her breasts against the fabric of her nightgown. Even after his brain shouted at him to look away, his eyes made out the dusky shadow of her nipples.
Heat scored him. This was Aurelia. Will’s vexing little sister.
Only not so little anymore.
He could not pretend otherwise. He’d first noticed that when he faced her amid her mother’s garden party years ago. But it was too late then.
And it was much too late now.
“Do you always make it a habit to stroll the house at night in your bedclothes?” he snapped.
Hot color flooded her face. “Should I not? I’ve no one to fear in my brother’s home. At least that was my assumption.”
“Not everyone in this house is kin to you. There are servants, are there not? And the occasional guest.”
She snorted. “Such as yourself? Is it fair to call you a guest? You’re constantly underfoot.”
“Well, you have made it your mission to remind me that I’m not a part of your family, so what else am I if not a guest?”
“Your unsavory reputation withstanding, I have nothing to fear from you.”