A Gentleman Never Tells(49)

“My lord, what happened?” Lady Gabrielle asked, stopping in front of him.

“Nothing worth talking about, Lady Gabrielle,” he said, knowing he needed to say as little as possible and leave with even less fanfare, as his brothers would say.

“Are you all right?” Iverson asked, scowling as he moved to stand beside him.

Brent nodded.

“You are not all right,” Lady Gabrielle said, her features marred with concern. “Your lip is bleeding. Tell me what happened to you.”

“I’ll tell you,” someone called from the crowd. “Mr. Alfred Staunton punched him in the mouth.”

Her eyes rounded with horror and concern. “Did he?” she said. She stepped closer to him and whispered, “Did you provoke him, my lord?”

A half laugh passed his aching lip. He wanted to say, Yes, Lady Gabrielle, I provoked him by taking you in my arms and kissing and touching you so thoroughly that still I cannot get the taste of you off my tongue, the scent of you from my nose, or wash the feel of you from my hands. But that wasn’t the kind of thing a gentleman said in front of a crowd that was getting larger by the second.

He couldn’t continue standing there, talking to Lady Gabrielle or his brother, and feeding the gossips.

“All is well, Lady Gabrielle,” he insisted firmly, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ll pick you up for our afternoon ride in the park on Wednesday as planned.”

Her brow wrinkled. “We planned no—”

“As we planned,” he interrupted in a low voice. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to bid our hostess farewell.”





Ten



We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies; it is the first law of nature.

—Voltaire

There is delicious scandal brewing in London as more than feet hit the dance floor at a well-attended soirée last night. It was told that Viscount Brentwood and Mr. Alfred Staunton met for the first time and, before the party was over, one of them left seeing fireworks behind his eyes and the other being helped out the door by his friends. And Lady Gabrielle left without a word.



—Lord Truefitt, Society’s Daily Column





Would the scandals never stop?

Brent wadded the newsprint and threw it at the draperies. Hell and damnation to the beast who wrote that rubbish. Brent would like to get his hands on whoever the hell Lord Truefitt was, and wipe up the dance floor with him. Brent had been in London less than two fortnights, and either he or his brothers had been in that blasted scandal sheet every morning since they arrived. It was no wonder his mother never allowed any of London’s newsprint in the house. And if Truefitt was really a lord, a titled gentleman of Polite Society, he wouldn’t stoop to write such drivel.

He didn’t even know why he bothered to look at it, other than he started looking at the column as a way to keep up with what the gossips were saying about his brothers. Brent had wanted Truefitt to stop writing about his brothers, but he never thought he’d be the latest scandal to take their place.

Brent pushed his chair back from the breakfast table and walked over to the buffet. He had very little appetite for the scrambled eggs, large pieces of ham, and fresh baked bread that filled the silver platters. Since he returned home from Lady Windham’s house last night, only two things had been on his mind: Staunton and Lady Gabrielle. He spent half his sleepless night wanting to smash Staunton’s face with his fist and the other half dying to kiss Lady Gabrielle again. How could he have become so bewitched by her and so quickly?

The slam of a door and the commotion of boots stomping on floors and chatter alerted Brent that his brothers had arrived. The twins made their way over to have the morning meal with him three or four times a week. He wasn’t up to their banter this morning. No doubt they wanted to talk about what happened last night. But Brent wouldn’t be talking.

He heard their heavy footfalls on the hardwood floors of the corridor and watched the doorway as first Matson and then Iverson appeared.

“Are we interrupting your breakfast?” Iverson asked as he leaned against the doorjamb.

“Not at all. I was expecting you, and you’re late,” Brent said and dipped into the eggs. “I’d decided you weren’t going to come today, so I started to eat without you.”

“We can’t have that,” Matson said, walked over to the buffet, and picked up a plate. Iverson headed for the silver coffeepot and poured himself a cup.