A Gentleman Never Tells

chapter Four

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it.

—Samuel Johnson

Hell and damnation! Brent had called her name until he was hoarse. He couldn’t find the dog.

And to top that off, he’d come home to find a tersely scribbled note from the duke, ordering him to appear at the man’s house before dark. He would have liked to have responded with a terse note of his own, by saying, “When hell freezes over,” but he knew better than to be that disrespectful to a powerful duke.

When Brent woke that morning, there was no way he could have imagined the hellish day he’d have. He wiped the last traces of shaving soap off his face and neck with a cloth and looked at himself in the small mirror on his shaving bureau. No doubt the Duke of Windergreen would smile when he saw the angry-looking scratch beneath Brent’s eye, and his swollen bottom lip. Thankfully, the scratch didn’t look deep enough to leave a bad scar.

He dried beads of water from his chest, then walked over and grabbed his trousers off the bed, where Raymond had neatly laid out his clothing, and stepped into them.

Brent had spent all morning and half the afternoon scouring that damn park, looking for Prissy, after the duke, his daughter, and his henchmen had left him standing in the middle of the park with a torn coat, a smashed and ruined hat, and a body that was bruised and scraped. Not to mention he had been on foot for the entire search.

He’d decided against wasting time by going to his house to get a carriage or a horse to ride. But, if at the time he’d known how long he would be out there, he would have certainly gotten some kind of transportation. It was well into the afternoon before he realized he might have to leave the park without the aggravating little dog.

And it was all because of an enchanting lady who walked out of the mist and into his arms. He would dearly love to put his hands around the slender neck of the beautiful and very tempting Lady Gabrielle and scare the devil out of her cheating little heart. At just the thought of her, his lower body stirred reflexively, and Brent grunted a rueful laugh.

His brain could not fool his body. If he ever got close enough to her again to put his hands around her lovely neck, he was much more likely to slowly caress the hollow of her throat where the beat of her pulse raced, or draw lazy circular patterns with his fingertips on that exquisitely soft skin behind her ear, than he was to try to strangle her.

Over the years and through his many travels, Brent had had many women seek his attention, but he was quite sure this morning was the first time he’d ever had such an intriguing young lady walk up to him and kiss him as Lady Gabrielle had. She had been soft, exhilarating, and heavenly. She’d smelled like spring’s first rose, and she had been utterly enchanting by first taking him to task over his tone with Prissy and then by surprising the hell out of him with her seduction.

But what was she thinking? She was a duke’s daughter! She must know that set her apart from most young ladies. Or perhaps, because she was a duke’s daughter, she felt free to behave as she wished with no thoughts of consequences, knowing her father would make everything right for her.

Even without her being engaged to another man, what she did was sheer madness, and he’d allowed it, even welcomed it. But he never would have touched her—well, he liked to tell himself that anyway—if he’d known she was promised to another. Years ago, when Brent found out about his mother’s affair with Sir Randolph Gibson, the man who had fathered her twin sons, he vowed never to touch a married or betrothed lady. He had firsthand knowledge of the havoc that kind of affair could bring. And he had kept that vow until this morning, when Lady Gabrielle seduced him with her seemingly innocent and extremely tempting undertaking.

That he hadn’t immediately caught on to what she was up to irritated the devil out of him. At the time, he had been far more interested in her sweet kisses and the way she felt in his arms than he was about the reason she was so free with her affections. Young ladies out to snare him into matrimony weren’t unfamiliar terrain for him. More than one had tried a number of tactics, tricks, and offers to lure him into marriage; but so far, he’d managed to elude them all. One thing was sure, if he made it out of this misfortune with his freedom intact, he’d make damn sure he never got caught unawares by another scheming lady ever again.

But Lady Gabrielle’s antics were second to a more important worry at the moment. He couldn’t do anything about that situation until he met with the duke. The disappearance of his mother’s cherished pet was a bigger concern, because Prissy could be hurt.

Brent never realized how big that damn park was until he started walking it, looking around trees, under bushes, and along the shoreline of the Serpentine for Prissy. Throughout the morning and into the afternoon, he’d stopped everyone he passed and asked if they had seen a small, long-haired, ivory-colored dog with a red braided collar and leash.

No one had seen her.

It was as if she’d disappeared into thin air.

He wouldn’t allow himself to consider the possibility that Prissy had met her demise by a wild animal of some kind. His hope was that, because the park was so big, they were continuously missing each other’s paths, or that, perhaps, her leash had caught on a rock or become entangled in some bushes and bound her, and she was still waiting to be found, freed, and fed.

Brent walked to his bedchamber window and looked out over the small garden at the back of his rented town house. Most members of the peerage owned their own homes in London, but Brent’s father had sold their home in Mayfair years ago. Though he didn’t like the idea, Brent would have to consider the idea of buying a place if his brothers’ business venture worked out and they settled in London. He supposed he could understand their wanting to move back to England, because he certainly didn’t want to entertain the idea of living in any other country. And his brothers now understood why their father wanted them to make their home across the seas.

With any luck, by the time he made it to the duke’s house, he would discover that all had been worked out with Lady Gabrielle’s fiancé, and the wedding would take place next week as planned. He would happily swear to the duke he would never breathe a word about what happened in the park and, of course, he wouldn’t anyway. However, the earl’s son might want to keep a close watch on his new bride. She obviously liked to slip out of her bed in the early hours of morning and prowl.

One of the reasons Brent had come to London was to find a wife. His intentions had been to look over a bevy of different young ladies before deciding which one should bear his name and his children. He certainly didn’t like the idea of being deceptively snared by one, no matter how tempting she was.

Suddenly, Brent remembered soft, willing lips pressed gently on his, luxuriously silky hair threading between his fingers, and an enticing breast flattened beneath his palm. When she was kissing him, he would have bet a hundred shillings she was an innocent, but now he wasn’t so sure. She had a fiancé, and if she had kissed Brent so wantonly, having just met him, there was always the possibility she’d gone much further with her fiancé. Not that it mattered to Brent what she’d done or with whom. He didn’t even know what the devil he was doing thinking about her again.

All he wanted to do was get this meeting with the duke behind him so he could go back to the park and concentrate on the more important matter of searching for Prissy while there was still a chance she was alive. He had vowed to keep the dog safe, and he was miffed at himself because he’d let the sweet lips of a tempting lady make him forget all about Prissy.

“But what man could have resisted her seduction?” he mumbled to himself.

Brent headed toward his bed but stopped when he heard the heavy stomp of booted feet running up the stairs. He knew what all that noise meant and, quite frankly, he wasn’t up to it.

The door swung open, hitting the wall with a bang. Brent’s identical twin brothers strode into his bedchamber as if they owned it, just the way they always had since they were two years old. Matson, the firstborn twin, plopped onto the middle of Brent’s bed and made himself comfortable by leaning against the headboard. The heels of his riding boots landed on Brent’s pressed white shirt. Iverson sauntered over to the brocade slipper chair, turned it around, and straddled the seat.

Raymond, Brent’s ever stiff and proper valet, walked calmly into the bedchamber behind them. “Excuse me, my lord. I explained to your brothers that you were preparing to leave for an appointment, but they insisted on seeing you immediately, and I couldn’t stop them.”

“No reason for you to try, Raymond. When they want to see me, they don’t let anything stand in their way. Thank you; that will be all.”

With all the correctness of a well-paid man, Raymond nodded once, turned around, and walked out, gently closing the door behind him. Brent would have had the fellow out looking for Prissy, too, but the man was so stiff and proper about everything he said and did, he would be completely useless combing the park.

Brent turned his attention to his brothers. They were tall, powerfully built men who wore their business success and breeding well. Even though he’d grown up with them, the only thing that made it possible for him to tell the two apart was the fact that, whether intentional or not, Iverson always wore his hair longer at the nape. And even though they were the spitting image of each other as far as looks, they couldn’t be more different in personalities. Iverson had always been the one to jump to conclusions, a ready to do battle hothead, and Matson a slow-to-action reasonable thinker.

It hadn’t been easy, but Brent had kept his mother’s secret for ten years. At the back of his mind, he knew the time would come when the twins would want to come to London. And before that happened, he had to tell them the man they had always thought to be their father wasn’t. And the man who had fathered them was very much alive and living in London.

As Brent looked at his brothers making themselves quite comfortable in his bedchamber, his mind drifted back to that stormy evening more than a month ago at his Brentwood estate.

Rain beat against the window panes, and the fire crackled and roared as Brent, Matson, and Iverson drank brandy in the drawing room, catching up on old times. It was the first time he’d seen them in the two years since their mother had died. They had come home to tell him they would be moving their shipping business from across the sea in Baltimore, Maryland, to London. Brent was getting nowhere in trying to talk them out of it.

“But why?” Brent asked for probably the twentieth time. “If your shipbuilding business is successful in Baltimore, why do you want to move it to London?”

“Damnation, Brent, why not?” Iverson said. “Only where we live will change, not the business itself.”

“Besides, England is our homeland,” Matson added. “We stayed in Baltimore only because our father started the business there and, for whatever reason, insisted we keep it there. Out of respect to Mama, we stayed there after he died. But she’s gone now, and we’re coming home. We never planned to live there a lifetime.”

“And quite frankly, Brent,” Iverson said, “we should have moved the company right after she passed.”

Brent drained his glass and put it on the table in front of the settee. “So your minds are made up? There’s no talking you out of it?”

“Not a chance in hell. We’re going to London tomorrow to find places to live and to start the process of moving the entire operations of Brentwood’s Sea Coast Ship Building.”

“Since you both insist on settling in London, there’s something I must tell you before you go. Something our parents never wanted you to know.”

Matson laughed and set his glass beside Brent’s. “Why are you sounding so somber, Brent? It’s like you don’t want us to move back.”

“Yes, why are you trying so hard to talk us out of it?” Iverson said. “We’d think you’d be glad to have us nearby. We’re not children anymore, you know. Out with whatever it is you want to tell us.”

“All right, there’s really no other way to tell you than directly, anyway. The man you always thought of as your father is not.”

“What did you say?” Matson asked.

“There is a man in London, and the two of you look just like him.”

“So?” Iverson said, swirling the last of his brandy in his glass, looking as if he couldn’t be less interested in what Brent was saying.

“What exactly are you saying, Brent?” Matson asked, seeming a little more intrigued than Iverson.

“When I say you look like him, I’m telling you the man is your birth father—not Judson Henry Brentwood, sixth Viscount Brentwood.”

Matson leaned forward and froze his gaze on Brent. “What the hell do you mean?”

“And it better not be what I’m thinking right now,” Iverson added in a cold voice and then drained his glass.

“I’m afraid it is. This isn’t some slight favoring with the same color of eyes and hair. It’s your build, the structure of your faces, the way you carry yourselves. You look just like the man, because he is your father. Mama admitted it to me ten years ago.”

“You lie.” Iverson rose and glared at him.

Brent remained calm. “No. And why would I?”

“If this is true,” Matson said, “Why did she tell you and not us?”

“Isn’t it obvious? She didn’t want you to ever know. That one son had found out about her indiscretion was enough of a blow to her. She wanted to spare herself the shame and you two the shock of finding out, as well.”

“Sit down, Iverson,” Matson said. “This needs an explanation and, obviously, Brent’s the only one who can give it.”

Brent sucked in a deep breath. It wasn’t natural for a son to talk with his mother about her affair, and he’d hated every moment of it, but so had she. And it wasn’t any easier telling his brothers about it.

“The summer Papa took you to Baltimore to set up the business, I went to London. While there, I went to a ball, and that is where I saw the man. His name is Sir Randolph Gibson. I was stunned at how much you two look like him. Naturally, I came home and told Mama I had seen him. She admitted to a brief affair with the man one spring while she was in London for the Season. She had no way of knowing until years later, when you grew up, that you had been fathered by Sir Randolph. She admitted the affair to our father, and that’s when he went to Baltimore to set up the shipping business for you there. His hope was you would never have reason to set foot in London. He never wanted you to hear about or to meet Sir Randolph.”

“We’re almost thirty, blast it, we should have been told before now,” Iverson said.

“No, I’m almost thirty, and you are almost twenty-nine. And I should have never had to live with this knowledge these past ten years, but I have. Take my word for it, if I could have persuaded you to stay away from London, I would have, but I couldn’t let you go and not be aware of your connection to Sir Randolph. If you two weren’t insisting on going to London tomorrow, I would have kept my bloody mouth shut until doomsday rather than have you find this out.”

Matson looked at Iverson. “So what do you have to say about all this?”

Iverson shrugged, picked up the decanter, and refilled the three glasses. He looked from Matson to Brent. “I say we’re going to London, and to hell with whoever this man is or the fact that we might look like him.”

Matson looked at Brent and smiled. “Well, then, Brother, we’re going to London.”

And they had.

Brent looked at the two strapping men and said, “Please don’t stand on polite ceremony, Brothers, when you can barge in with such tantalizing fanfare.”

Iverson placed his forearms on top of the chair back and looked directly at Brent with his dark blue eyes. “From what we’re hearing, you are the one creating fanfare.”

“Me?” Brent said, pulling his shirt out from under Matson’s boot. He threw a disgruntled glance toward Iverson and then pulled the shirt over his head. “You are the one causing a stir by leaving your mark on that coxcomb Lord Waldo Rockcliffe as if you thought it would go unnoticed.”

Iverson shrugged. “I’ve not heard of him telling anyone what happened to him, have you, Matson?”

“Not a word,” his twin answered.

Brent knew Iverson had a cocksure way about him that intimidated most men, and he seldom had to resort to fisticuffs to settle anything. Lord Waldo must have been blind not to have known he was pushing Iverson too far.

“Did you happen to think that might be because he doesn’t have to tell anyone? Most people are smart enough to know it was either you or Matson who blessed him with the black eye, because all he’s been talking about for the past week is how much you two resemble Sir Randolph. Now he’s quiet as a church mouse on Sunday morning. Of course, I know you both too well to think it was Matson who left his mark on the poor bloke.”

“Really?” Matson smiled. “I’m pained to know you don’t think I did it. But has it ever once entered that thick brain of yours that it’s quite possible some Londoners might think you were the vile creature that was crass enough, or perhaps I should say you were the one courageous enough, to knock a duke’s youngest brother on his arse?”

“That might be especially believable now that we see you are also sporting a fat lip and a nasty scratch of your own,” Iverson added.

Matson chuckled. “Yes, no doubt you met with someone who didn’t like what you had to say, much like Lord Waldo did.”

“Are you two through?” Brent grumbled as he swiped his neckcloth off the edge of the bed and slung the long strip around his neck. He walked over to the tall bureau where his shaving mirror sat and started the process of tying the blasted thing.

“Not quite, big Brother, tell us what happened.”

Iverson laughed and said, “But then again, maybe he doesn’t want to tell us what happened.”

“Just as well, because that wasn’t the fanfare we were talking about anyway, was it?”

“No, but I still want to know how he got that nasty cut on his lip and shiner under his eye.”

Brent tuned out his brothers as he struggled with his neckcloth. He’d never learned how to do a decent job of tying a perfect bow. No matter how hard he tried, his neckcloth always came out looking like he hurried through it. He wasn’t in a mood to make the bow look respectable today, and wouldn’t except for the fact that he had to see the Duke of Windergreen, and for some reason, felt he needed to look his best.

“So, are you going to tell us, or am I going to have to beat it out of you?” Iverson asked.

He watched his brothers behind him in the mirror. “I don’t know what fanfare you two are talking about, but I suppose it has something to do with the fact that I plan to ask Sir Randolph Gibson to meet with me.”

His brothers’ banter ceased, and they looked at each other and then back to him. “No, we hadn’t heard that,” Matson said.

Iverson’s eyes narrowed, and his lips set in a grim line before he said, “Our resemblance to Sir Randolph has nothing to do with you, Brent. Stay out of it.”

Brent had to quell his instinct to give Iverson and Matson orders and expect to be obeyed as he had when they were boys. “Of course it has something to do with me. You’re my brothers. I simply want to know where the man stands concerning this.”

“He stands where he’s always stood,” Iverson said. “We don’t expect our coming to London to change him or his behavior, and we sure as hell won’t let him change us or what we plan to do.”

Matson added, “As far as we can tell, he’s never said a word about us, and as long as he stays quiet and doesn’t bother us, we won’t bother him.”

“If he starts talking,” Iverson added, “I’ll pay him a visit.”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” Matson said, and then in an unusual tone of warning, added, “and it’s not necessary for you to meet with him, Brent. If it comes to the point that something needs to be done, we will do it. Now, let’s talk about something other than Sir Randolph.”

Brent was happy to do that since his brothers didn’t know he had already been to Bow Street and had hired a runner to gather information on Sir Randolph Gibson. Once Brent knew more about the fellow, he’d arrange for a time to meet with him, whether his brothers wanted him to or not. As his mother once said, “What they don’t know can’t hurt them.”

“Tell us about this more pressing matter of what happened in the park this morning,” Matson urged.

“Yes,” Iverson added. “We’ve been getting bits and pieces of this outlandish story everyone insists you are involved in.”

“Though, to me, it doesn’t sound like anything you would be caught up in.”

“Right,” Matson said. “I would believe it of Iverson but not you, Brent. What’s going on?”

Brent made the last loop of the bow in his neckcloth and turned to face his brothers. “Damnation, I have no idea. She’s with me one moment, and the next thing I know she’s crying for help. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t get to her.” Brent noticed Iverson’s eyes getting bigger, and Matson rose up and swung his feet off the bed. Brent kept talking. “I searched all over that damn park and tried to find her, but I haven’t seen any sign of her yet. It’s dreadful to even think about it, but I can only hope a wild animal didn’t get to her.”

“Damnation, Brent,” Matson said, “what the devil did you do to Lady Gabrielle?”

“You think a wild animal attacked her?” Iverson said. “Hell’s gates, Brent, what is the matter with you? Why did you leave a defenseless woman alone in the park?”

“And what were you doing in the park with her in the first place?” Matson asked.

“I think we know the answer to that,” Iverson said. “From what I heard at White’s an hour ago, Brent was the wild animal who got hold of her.”

“What? No, no, stop.” Brent blew out a breathy laugh. “We are talking about two different females here, Brothers.”

“What’s gotten into you?” Matson asked. “You met with more than one woman in the park?”

“That’s so unlike you,” Iverson said with a wicked grin. “London must be having some kind of strange effect on you and, whatever it is, I hope I catch it.”

“But what happened to your vow never to touch a betrothed or married woman?” Matson asked.

Iverson chuckled. “I guess that oath is out the window now.”

Matson rose from the bed. “Brent, you know better. She’s a duke’s daughter and engaged to an earl’s son.”

Brent shook his head. His brothers could make the biggest mountain out of the smallest amount of dirt. He was determined not to let them frustrate him. He’d already been there today with Prissy and Lady Gabrielle, and he wasn’t going there for his brothers. He picked up his light brown waistcoat with fabric-covered buttons and put it on over his crisp white shirt. Thankfully, the waistcoat hid the black heel mark on the front of the shirt made by Matson’s boot.

“My hope is that Lady Gabrielle is still engaged to the earl’s son, and my vow has not changed. At the time, I had no idea Lady Gabrielle was betrothed.”

“How you talked her into meeting you in the park is what I want to know.” Iverson said. “I never seem to be quite that lucky with ladies of quality.”

“And who is this other woman who was crying for help and might have been attacked by a wild animal?” Matson said. “That’s rather gruesome, isn’t it?”

Brent sighed. Why couldn’t they ask their questions one at a time? “I didn’t arrange to meet Lady Gabrielle. It was quite by accident. And the other female is not a woman but a dog. Prissy was with me, but when I was—” Brent suddenly found himself reluctant to say more, so he stopped.

“When you were what?” Matson urged with a grin and sat back down on the bed again.

“When he was in the middle of the best part,” Iverson said with another wicked gleam in his eyes.

“I mean no such thing, you beast. Damnation, Iverson, contrary to whatever lewd and scandalous comments you may have heard in the boisterous backrooms at White’s, nothing happened between me and Lady Gabrielle this morning. And as a gentleman I’ll say no more on the matter.”

“Forget Lady Gabrielle for the moment,” Matson said, “because obviously she is safe at her home by now. What I want to know is where Prissy is at the moment.”

Brent felt as if his stomach twisted. “I don’t know where she is. Unfortunately, she ran off somewhere in the park, and I couldn’t find her. I have to go to the Duke of Windergreen’s house right now, and after I’m through there, I plan to take another look through the park. Somehow, I’ve missed finding her.”

“So you are telling us you managed not only to compromise the duke’s engaged daughter, you lost Prissy, as well?”

Brent picked up his dark brown coat and shoved his arms into the sleeves. “That is exactly what I’m telling you, Brothers. I sent my footman and his son out looking for her as soon as I returned. Right now would be a good time for the two of you to speak up and say you’ll take a ride through the park to see if you can find her.”

“Absolutely, we will,” Matson said, and then looked at his twin. “If it’s a good time for you. If not, I can go alone.”

Iverson rose from the slipper chair. “No, I’m ready.”

“Good,” Brent said. “If you find the little devil, bring her back here and make yourselves at home for as long as you want. You know where the wine is kept. I go to discover my fate.”

Brent turned and walked out the door.