What a Reckless Rogue Needs (The Sinful Scoundrels, #2)(5)

“Clever,” he said.

Angeline clapped her hands twice. “Girls, repair to the drawing room. The marchioness is expecting us.”

He offered his arm to her. “Shall we?”

“I don’t know. You look as if you’re facing a prison cell rather than a drawing room.”

He said nothing, but he’d always dreaded visits to his father’s home. He’d been at Eton when his father remarried, and on his infrequent stays at Deerfield, he’d never felt he belonged. It wasn’t as if they were estranged; it was just circumstances. He’d always felt a bit awkward here, and as a result, he didn’t visit often.

They entered the drawing room to the delighted exclamations of Angeline’s mother—the Duchess of Wycoff—and his stepmother, Margaret, the marchioness. He noted the proliferation of gray in the duchess’s hair, and the fine hair on his neck stiffened. The scandal must have created a great deal of vexation.

“I daresay they make a handsome pair,” the duchess said.

Colin winced. When they were children, their deluded families had concocted the idea of a match between them, all because they were born only a week apart. But that had happened when they were mere babes, before his mother’s death and his father’s second marriage.


“Unfortunately, Colin and Angeline are about as compatible as two spitting cats,” the marquess said.

“Chadwick, please mind your words,” Margaret said. “Oh, look what you’ve started. The girls are hissing at each other. Bianca, Bernadette, you will cease.”

His father had spoken the truth. Beyond the annual house party and the spring season, Colin and Angeline had done their best to avoid each other over the years, though they had not been entirely successful. Despite her outward civility this evening, he knew her capacity for causing trouble, and he could not afford to be distracted. The fate of Sommerall hung in the balance.

He escorted Angeline to a chair and headed for the sideboard. Five minutes in her presence had been enough to send him to the brandy decanter. Admittedly, a goodly portion had to do with her womanly figure. A shrew she might be, but she was also the sort of woman men mentally undressed. At that thought, he poured himself two fingers, and then his gaze veered to his father. Show him you’re confident and unconcerned.

The Marquess of Chadwick returned his look with an inscrutable expression.

“Welcome, Colin,” the Marchioness of Chadwick said.

He bowed. “You look well, Margaret.”

“I’m very glad you came.” For a moment, she looked as if she would say more and then seemed to reconsider. Her abrupt silence didn’t surprise him. They had always been ill at ease with each other, although unfailingly polite. Her late father had been in trade, but she’d been educated as a lady. Colin assumed his father had married her for her wealth, but he did not know for certain, and he most certainly would never ask.

Margaret faced Angeline. “Thank you for bringing the girls to the drawing room. Left to their own devices, I fear they would spend all of their time in their room engaged in idle gossip.”

“What gossip could they possibly know?” the marquess said in a gruff voice. “They aren’t even out in society yet.”

The twins immediately adopted cherubic expressions. Colin bit his lip to keep from laughing.

Margaret regarded her husband with lifted brows. “You seem to have forgotten the letter they wrote to the king six months ago.”

Colin regarded his sisters with mock gravity. “Why did you write to the king?”

The marquess released a loud sigh. “Your sisters advised him to adopt a slimming regimen.”

Colin’s shoulders shook with laughter. The poor king’s girth was the subject of many caricatures.

“Thank goodness Ames intercepted the letter before it went out with the post,” Margaret said.

Colin leaned against the sideboard. So his sisters were still scamps. He found himself glad, perhaps because soon they would be entering the adult world, before he’d even gotten a chance to catch up on their burgeoning adolescence. The fault was his, and he’d meant to do better, but somehow intention led to procrastination. In London, it was all too easy to get caught up in the clubs, the races, the fencing matches, and the loose women who pursued him.

The Duke of Wycoff approached and clapped Colin on the shoulder. “I wasn’t certain you would attend.”

He wouldn’t have done so if not for his father’s letter. From the corner of his eye, Colin saw his father watching and retrieved the decanter. “Brandy?” he asked the duke.

“Don’t mind if I do,” the duke said. “It’s been an age since we last met.”

“White’s last spring, if memory serves me right.” Colin handed him a brandy and sipped his own drink. His father always stocked the finest brandy and port. “I take it Landale could not attend?” Colin said.

“My son did not wish to travel, given that his wife is in a delicate condition.”

Colin smiled a little at Wycoff’s old-fashioned reference to his daughter-in-law’s impending childbirth.

Wycoff inhaled the brandy’s fragrance. “It has been two years since the last house party. I confess I missed the shooting with Chadwick.”

There was a reserved air about Wycoff that had never been there before. He didn’t mention Angeline’s broken engagement and subsequent journey to Paris with her mother. It wasn’t the sort of topic one spoke of openly, but Colin felt it simmering beneath the surface. One thing he noticed was that Wycoff avoided looking at his eldest daughter. Colin found it odd and told himself he was imagining undercurrents. Deep down, he suspected there was something brewing beneath the surface, but he’d no idea what it was. Perhaps that was for the best.