Until You Read online

  Until a year or two ago, he had at least tolerated the women who made cakes of themselves over him. Until then, he had treated them with nothing worse than amused condescension, but lately his patience had seemed to come to an end. These days, he was fully capable of delivering a crushing setdown or a biting incivility that was guaranteed to reduce a lady to mortified tears and to outrage her relatives when they heard of it.

  And yet . . . tonight, he had been smiling into Charise Lancaster’s eyes with some of his old warmth. No doubt part of his attitude owed itself to the fact that Stephen felt responsible for her plight—and he was. She needed him desperately right now, but in Dr. Whitticomb’s opinion, he needed her just as badly. He needed gentleness in his life and sweetness. Most of all, he needed hard proof that there were unmarried females in the world who wanted and needed more from him than just the use of his title, his money, and his estates.

  Even in her vulnerable state of mind, Charise Lancaster seemed to place no importance in his title or the size and elegance of his home. She wasn’t intimidated by him, or his possessions, nor was she awed by his attention. Tonight she had greeted Hugh with a natural warmth that was irresistible, then she had laughed out loud at Stephen’s gallantry. She was refreshingly frank and unselfconscious, yet she was sweet and soft too—enough to have been crushed by Stephen’s neglect. She was the sort of rare young woman who thought of others’ needs before her own and who obviously forgave offenses with grace and generosity. During the first few days of her recovery, when she was still confined to her bed, she’d invariably asked Hugh to reassure “the earl” that she was going to recover her health and her memory so that he wouldn’t worry needlessly. Moreover, she’d been thoughtful enough—and astute enough—to realize that he would blame himself for her accident. In addition to that, Hugh was completely enchanted by her friendly, unaffected cordiality toward everyone, from the servants to himself, and even her betrothed.

  Monica Fitzwaring was a fine young woman of excellent character and breeding, and Hugh liked her very well, but not as a wife for Stephen. She was lovely, gracious, and serene—as she’d been taught to be—but because of that same upbringing, she had neither the desire nor the ability to evoke deep emotions in any husband, and particularly not in Stephen. Not once, in all the times Hugh had seen Stephen with her, had he ever looked at her with the sort of gentle warmth he’d shown to Charise Lancaster in the last hour. Monica Fitzwaring would make Stephen an excellent hostess and charming dinner companion, but she would never be able to touch his heart.

  Not long ago, Stephen had alarmed his entire family by announcing that he had no intention of ever marrying Monica or anyone else merely to beget an heir. Hugh found that more reassuring than alarming. He didn’t approve one bit of these modern marriages of convenience that were so de rigueur amongst the ton—not for anyone he cared about, and he cared very much about the Westmorelands. For Stephen, he wanted nothing less than the sort of marriage Clayton Westmoreland had, the sort of marriage Hugh himself had when his Margaret was alive.

  His Margaret . . .

  Even now, as he strolled past the stately mansions that marched along Upper Brook Street, the thought of her made him smile. Charise Lancaster rather reminded him of his Margaret, he realized. Not in looks, of course, but in her kindness and her pluck!

  All things considered, Hugh was quite convinced that fate had finally given Stephen Westmoreland the sort of blessing he deserved. Of course, Stephen didn’t want that sort of blessing, and Charise Lancaster wasn’t likely to feel very “blessed” when she discovered she’d been duped by her “fiancé” and her own physician. Nevertheless, fate had Hugh Whitticomb as an ally, and Dr. Whitticomb fancied himself as something of a potent force when the need arose.

  “Maggie girl,” he said aloud, because even though his wife had died ten years before, he still felt she was very close and he liked to talk to her to keep her close, “I think we’re going to pull off the best match in years! What do you think?”

  Swinging his cane, he tipped his head and listened, and then he started to chuckle because he could almost hear her familiar response: “I think you should call me Margaret, Hugh Whitticomb, not Maggie!”

  “Ah, Maggie girl,” Hugh whispered, grinning, because he always replied the same way, “you’ve been my Maggie since the day you slid backwards off that horse and dropped right into my arms.”

  “I did not slide off, I dismounted. A little awkwardly.”

  “Maggie,” Hugh whispered, “I wish you were here.”

  “I am, darling.”

  18

  Stephen had intended to spend the night with Helene, at the theatre and then in her bed, but three hours after he’d left, he found himself back at his own front door, frowning because his knock hadn’t been answered. Inside the entrance hall, he looked around for a butler or a footman, but the place seemed deserted, despite the relatively early hour. Dropping his gloves on a hall table, he strolled into the main salon. No butler materialized to divest him of his coat, so he shrugged out of it and tossed it over the arm of a chair. Then he took out his watch, wondering if it had stopped.

  His watch indicated the hour was half past ten, and when he turned to study the ormolu clock on the mantel, both timepieces agreed. Normally, he never returned from an evening with Helene, or any of his clubs, until dawn, and even then a sleepy-eyed footman was always in the hall to greet him.

  His thoughts turned to the evening he’d just spent with Helene, and Stephen reached up, idly rubbing his hand over the back of his neck, as if he could somehow rub away the discontent and ennui that had plagued him all night. Seated beside her in his box at the theatre he’d paid scant attention to the performance on stage, and then it was only to find fault with the actors, the musicians, the stage setting, and the perfume worn by the elderly dowager in the next box. In his state of restlessness, everything seemed to either bore or grate on him.

  The unusually pleasant mood he’d enjoyed earlier, as Sherry partook of an early dinner and regaled him with her amusing—and often astute—observations about her latest discoveries in the newspapers, had begun to dissipate as soon as he left the house.

  By the end of the play’s first act, Helene had sensed his discontent, and smiling invitingly behind her fan, she had whispered, “Would you prefer to leave now, and create our own ‘second act’ in more congenial surroundings?”

  Stephen had readily acceded to her suggestion that he take her to bed, but his performance there was as unsatisfying as the performance he’d witnessed at the theatre. Once he’d gotten his clothes off, he discovered he didn’t want to indulge in the sort of leisurely sexual preliminaries he normally enjoyed; he simply wanted to spend himself in her. He’d wanted physical relief, not sensual pleasure; he’d gotten the former and given none of the latter.

  Helene had noticed, of course, and as he shoved off the bedcovers to get up, she raised up on an elbow and watched him dressing. “What occupies your thoughts tonight?”

  Guilty and frustrated, Stephen had bent down to press an apologetic kiss on her furrowed forehead, as he replied, “A situation that is entirely too complicated and too vexing to trouble you with.” The explanation was an evasion, and they both knew it, just as they both knew a mistress was not ordinarily entitled to explanations or recriminations, but then Helene Devernay was far from ordinary. She was as sought-after and admired in her own right as any of the ton’s acclaimed beauties. She chose her lovers to suit herself, and she had a wide field to choose from, all of them wealthy noblemen who were only waiting for the chance to offer her their “protection,” as Stephen had done, in exchange for the exclusive right to her bed and her company.

  She’d smiled at his evasion and traced her fingertip down the deep vee of his open shirt as she inquired with sham innocence, “I understand from a seamstress at Madame LaSalle’s that you had urgent need of several gowns that you desired to be delivered to your home with utmost haste for a visitor there. How is th