Tavy peered at her sister’s pleading eyes and a surge of warmth rose in her, overpowering the alarm. She drew in a breath and slid her arm around Alethea’s waist again.
“You recovered so swiftly from your confinement, I think we all have forgotten how recent it was, and how difficult the journey was for you.”
“Then you will come?”
“I will if you wish it.”
His party could prove useful. She could not ask the gentlemen point-blank if they knew Marcus’s blackmailer. But traders’ wives sometimes knew more than their husbands realized. Merely sister to a trader, Tavy herself knew more about the Marquess of Doreé than any of them would even begin to imagine.
But that meant nothing in any way that mattered. She would go to his house but she would avoid conversation with him, thereby avoiding confusion. And if every time she caught a glimpse of him her heartbeat sped and her blood warmed, that would simply be her punishment for being such a fool once.
Ben took his head between his hands and tried to focus on the rough surface of the table inches from his face. To no success. The clamor of coarse male voices and equally unrefined female ejaculations combined with the agitated sawing of a fiddle racketed through his brain, halting thought.
But dulled thought was precisely what he had sought here. He couldn’t remember how he ended up on a bench surrounded by dockworkers and sailors, nor could he really recall anything for quite some hours, except the desperate need to forget. He scrubbed his hands over his face and sank them into his hair, the haze thickening.
“Poor ducky.” A woman’s cool, callused fingers passed over his brow. “I’ll wager you ain’t been in such a state in a month of me pa’s sober days. Not here, leastways.”
“Does she truly not understand, Lil?” he uttered to the tabletop. “Could she be so na?ve, or is it lies?”
“Who’s that, love?”
He swung his head around and made out the moll’s rounded features. “She has no idea.”
“Then she’s a fool, whoever she is.” Lil pursed her full lips and ran her hand down his neck and back. “Forget about her and come give Lily a cuddle.” She twined her arm around his waist.
He shook his head. “I’ve been trying to forget for years. Can’t seem to. But thank you for the invitation.”
“Always the gentleman.” She smelled of ale and something cloyingly sweet, sorghum sugar, perhaps. But her heart was good. He remembered that about her from years back. Ben tried to smile and failed.
“If she’s noddy enough to put you off, she don’t deserve you, duck. But there’s quality females for you.” Lil shrugged, her bosom threatening to tip over her tight-laced bodice. A brawl brewed across the gin house, shouts and gruff insults. Ben wrapped his hand around the bottle of Blue Ruin and lifted it to his lips.
“There there, ducky. Ain’t you had enough already?”
“I daresay he has, Lil.”
Ben slewed his gaze up. Styles hovered beside the table, swaying from side to side. Or perhaps that was the gin.
“Aw,” Lil scowled, lips tight. “Come to take his lordship away and I’ve not yet got what I came over here for.”
“What’s that?” Styles murmured with a smile.
“What I’ll not be giving the likes of you ever again.” She glared.
Styles’s grin faded.
Ben shook his head. He’d certainly drunk too much.
Lil leaned to his ear and slid a hand along his thigh. “Come on, love. I’ll take your mind off that bit o’ prim-and-proper for half price.”
A chuckle cracked in his tight chest. “Still generous, but never too generous. You give a man hope in the honesty of women, Lil.”
“You’re a peculiar cove, but I likes you. Always did. She don’t know what she’s missing.” Beneath the table she ran her hand over his crotch, lingering, then pulled away and stood up. With another dark look at the baron, she moved off through the crowd.
“What’ve you done to fall into Lil’s bad graces, Styles?” Ben pushed the bottle away and pressed his palms to the sticky table.
“No doubt she’s on her high horse since you are here. She always liked you quite a bit better than me.”
Ben glanced up and Styles’s gaze came around to meet him, shuttered. Peculiar. Unlike him.
Definitely the drink.
Ben pushed onto his feet. His clogged head spun.
Styles laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll take you to Hauterive’s. Why you came in here when the company down the street would welcome you, I haven’t the slightest. Glad I came upon you, though.”
“No. I’m for home.” Ben started toward the door.
“You disappeared from Lady Ashford’s party so swiftly I hadn’t an idea of it until you were gone. If I’d have known you were heading here I would have dissuaded you.”
“Couldn’t have.” Ben pushed through the lollers at the tavern’s entry and headed toward the mews down the alley with bleary eyes but houndlike precision. If he hadn’t trekked this path hundreds of times in his university days, he would be lost now. Lost in London’s hells and lost in confounded memories, neither of which locations he particularly wished to be.
“Who was that girl you were dancing with, the one that looked like an Irish Athena, all sublime figure and eyes of soft steel?”
Ben blinked to shut out the image of Octavia’s body wrapped in the shimmering gown, her soft lips, pinkened cheeks, and the sensation of her trembling fingers within his. But behind his lids the image was even stronger, and his hand still felt hot where hers had lain.
“Good God, Walker,” he grunted, “you and Constance would make a perfect pair, both of you curious as a couple of magpies.”
“Lady Constance asked about the girl too? Is she jealous?”
“Only of your paramours.”
“Then the lady at Ashford’s is a paramour?”
Ben shook his head, his stomach rolling. “Not mine.” Not any longer.
He moved across the street in unsteady strides.
But why not? No one controlled his destiny now. His life was his own. Why not seduce a beautiful, deceitful woman, a woman whose flavor yet remained upon his tongue? Why not take pleasure where he wished?
Because he could not then and still could not believe in her deceit, although he had tried to convince himself of it again and again. To absolve himself of guilt.
He stumbled into the stable and pressed his face into his horse’s satiny neck. Taking to the bottle tonight had been a mistake. He needed clarity. A pitcher of icy water over his head would do it, just as her smile had earlier, so brief it seemed she didn’t even know she smiled, washing his vision clear for an instant as it always had.
Drunken idiocy.
He pulled his horse from the stall, jammed his foot into the stirrup and climbed aboard the big black mare. He reached into his pocket to toss a coin toward the stable lad.
“Home, Kali.” If he made it to Cavendish Square without falling off his horse or prey to footpads, it would be by the grace of God, Allah, and Vishnu combined.
“Lady Carmichael was asking after you with great interest not an hour ago,” Styles called after him.
“Lady Carmichael can take her interest and put it where it will give her the most pleasure.” Ben pressed his knees into the mare’s sides.
The wealthy, stunning widow Carmichael had been a habitué of Hauterive’s years earlier, when Ben frequented the exclusive gaming club. She hadn’t made any secret to Ben what she wanted from him. Guided by a young man’s lust and his uncle’s directive, he had given it to her. But away from Hauterive’s, amongst polite society, the lady never once acknowledged their acquaintance, not even after he acceded to the title.