A Fool Again: A Novella Read online

  “How is your father?” he asked her. Not that he gave a bean, beyond hoping the old goat had repented for marrying his only daughter to a clutch-fisted old man.

  “He died not long after your father, Mr. Darby. I am sorry for your loss.” She didn’t sound the least bit sorry. “I gather from the fact that you did not return to England that you did not hear of your father’s demise until recently?”

  As it happened, Tobias had heard of his father’s death. He simply hadn’t seen it as an occasion to return home. It wasn’t until he heard of the death of Lord Mulcaster that he caught the next available boat.

  Genevieve’s magnificent eyes were snapping with irritation. “I do believe your father regularly sent out investigators to try to find you,” she said pointedly.

  “I’ve been in India,” Tobias replied, shrugging off a faint pang of guilt. His father had been a Captain Sharp masquerading as a gentleman; it was absurd to feel guilt for leaving the country after he had been ordered many times to do so.

  The theater curtain began to rise, signaling the next installment of Othello’s tumultuous marriage. No one in the audience bothered to look toward the red velvet, preferring to watch the Felton box.

  “We are attracting rather a lot of attention,” Felton pointed out.

  Tobias shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me.”

  “But I do believe that Lady Mulcaster is somewhat discomfited,” Felton said gently. “I cannot leave the theater, as I am one of Witter’s sponsors. Perhaps you would be so kind as to escort Lady Mulcaster to her house, Mr. Darby?”

  Genevieve burst out with “No!”

  “I’d be more than happy to do so,” Tobias said smoothly, cutting off her objection. “Lady Mulcaster?” He rose and held out his arm.

  She just stared up at him, that plump lower lip of hers rigid with disapproval. “I don’t wish to leave!” she hissed at him.

  The faint hum of fascinated polite society watching their box threatened to overwhelm the rolling tones of Othello, who was informing the whole world that he considered his wife unfaithful.

  Felton leaned forward. “I greatly dislike the presumption that we are providing more entertainment than Mr. Witter,” he noted. “You would do me great service, Lady Mulcaster, if you would accept Mr. Darby’s escort.”

  Genevieve blinked at him. Felton wanted her to go, after what they had shared? After that kiss? Didn’t he want to escort her home, to take her in his arms in the warmth and dark of the carriage and— Weren’t they betrothed now? Why was he sending her off with another man?

  “I will attend you in the morning if I may,” Felton said, picking up her hand and kissing it.

  Genevieve felt the kiss to the bottom of her toes. She drew away her hand and tried to stop the silly smile that spread over her face. Perhaps Felton was right. She might as well take this uncouth giant out of the playhouse and get it through his thick head that she was uninterested in their further acquaintance. “Very well,” she said, putting her hand on Tobias’s arm.

  Felton smiled at her again, and she detected approval in his eyes. Perhaps an exhibition of nonchalant indifference was the way to Felton’s heart? She thought about that as she and Tobias made their way out of the box and down the stairs. Perhaps Felton wished for a wife who would view the world just as he did: with a calm, detached amusement. Whereas she quivered if he put a finger on her arm, stole glances at him constantly, and blushed far more frequently than she could have wished.

  Tobias’s carriage was enviously luxurious, upholstered in dark blue velvet with silver embroidery. He must have done well in the past seven years, given that he was a younger son whose father had lost their house in a card game. Genevieve eyed him and decided there was no point in raking the man over the coals for his disreputable behavior in the past. After all, it hardly mattered. She was Felton’s now. He had kissed her in front of everyone.

  It was almost amusing, how different Felton and Tobias were. Tobias was the wild boy of Genevieve’s youth, and he didn’t seem to have changed a bit. He had grown up just down the road, although their families did not visit because her father considered his father to be a loose fish. There were rumors about gambling and, increasingly as the twins grew up, rumors about the boys’uncivilized behavior. As a child, Genevieve had lived for the rare glimpses she had of those boys, striding through the village, bursting with life and vivacity. Their father would swear loudly and call them impudent puppies. They would laugh at him and prance away, paying him no mind. It was only years later that she understood the importance of civilized behavior.

  “Did you say that you’ve been in India all these years, Mr. Darby?” she asked, shrugging out of her pelisse and putting it onto the seat beside her. It was remarkably warm. “It must have been a surprise to you to return and find your brother married,” she said. “Lady Henrietta is a lovely woman.”

  “Quite a surprise,” he agreed. He truly was good-looking, even with his disordered curls. She was used to Felton’s sleek hair. It was a good thing that she was so infatuated with Felton, because otherwise she might relapse directly into Tobias’s arms, Genevieve thought with some amusement. The way he was looking at her was a direct opposite to Felton’s cool regard.

  “Why didn’t your brother Giles return to England with you?” she askeddiv height="0em">

  “He hadn’t any reason to.”

  “And you did?” Genevieve said, and then suddenly stopped.

  For he was looking at her steadily, and there was something in his eyes. “Yes,” he said slowly. “I did.”

  “Um,” Genevieve said, trying to think of another topic of conversation. “So what did you do all these years in India?” she finally asked.

  “I made a fortune,” he said, still watching her.

  “Oh?” Try as she might, she couldn’t think what to say to that. “How nice for you.”

  “I plan to marry,” he said in a conversational kind of voice. “Now that I am able to support a wife and children.”

  “An excellent idea! I can introduce you to some lovely young women.” Genevieve suddenly realized what was happening. Tobias had made his fortune, and now he wished to ameliorate for his dreadful behavior seven years ago. He intended to use her to assuage his conscience, but unfortunately she wasn’t available. Genevieve had to bite her lip to keep back a smile. “Truly,” she added, “I have made a number of friends and I shall introduce you.”

  “But I already know you,” he said softly. Suddenly he was sitting next to her, rather than across from her. “Don’t I, Genevieve? Already know you, I mean?”

  She colored and drew back. “There’s no need to be—to be saucy!” she snapped.

  “It was a mere statement of fact,” he told her, and something in his eyes made a glimmer of shameless memory stir in her mind.

  “Lord Felton and I are likely to be married,” she said quickly.

  “Likely?” Not only was he sitting entirely too close to her but he had started stroking the bare skin of her arm with one finger. “What a very odd way of expressing your betrothal. There is a betrothal, isn’t there, Genevieve? After all, Felton kissed you before an extremely interested audience. The whole theater, as a matter of fact.”

  She scowled and then realized exactly what to say. “As you well know, sir,” she said haughtily, “one needn’t be formally betrothed in order to know each other.”

  The finger stopped for a second and then continued. “True enough.” She couldn’t read his eyes. Even with four lamps burning in the carriage, his face was in shadow.

  His hand curled around her arm. She shivered instinctively. But when she turned to pull her pelisse over her shoulders, he stopped her.

  “Sir!” she protested.

  “You didn’t call me ‘sir’ last time we met.” His eyes burned into hers. A lock of hair had fallen over his brow. Goodnes, he was handsome. It was nice to think that, if nothing else, she had chosen so well back when she was a mere lass.

  She opened her mout
h to answer, but he was there. Those hands were lightning quick, for being so large. One tipped up her chin and then his mouth closed on hers before she could even squeak. Tobias kissed with the same boisterous enthusiasm he had seven years before. He invaded her mouth with the impetuous wildness that had led to her—to her—

  Down the years of memory, he smelled just the same: a rough, wild, Tobias smell of the outdoors, of a wild boy now a man, of a devil-may-care freedom. His touch brought back memories of all the days she’d walked sedately into the village beside her governess, hoping for a glimpse of the wild Darby twins.

  So, just for a moment, and only because of those memories, she kissed him back, let their tongues dance together in a moment’s reckless foolishness before she wrenched herself away. “What on earth are you doing?” she gasped, thinking that there really ought to be more indignation in her tone.

  “Shall I demonstrate again?” he asked, humor dancing in his eyes.

  “What?” she said, her mind foggy. One swift movement later, she found herself in his lap, sitting in the circle of his arms, and he was tasting her again. Her head fell back against his shoulder without a rational protest. And this time, sheltered in the circle of his arms, his mouth moving roughly over hers, her arm clutching tight around his neck, she didn’t even remember about indignation. Their tongues tangled to the beat of her heart. He was the one who stopped the kiss, his mouth tracing a smoldering trail over her cheeks.

  She just sat there, struck dumb with surprise, while he kissed her ear. What was she doing? What were those shocks dancing up and down her legs, making her breasts feel tender? What was she doing?

  His mouth was coming back to hers; she could sense it. Could feel the slight edge of tension in his body, the way he curved toward her. She should push him away, warn him, threaten him! “Yes,” she sighed, winding her fingers into his hair and pulling him closer. His tongue plunged into her mouth as if... as if.

  There was a faint chiming noise as strings of glass beads cascaded to the floor, set free by strong hands that ran through her hair. His hands were everywhere, touching her neck, brushing down her narrow back, pausing on the swell of her hips. He was touching—his hand was touching—she could hear her own sigh as his hand cupped her breast, and she could hardly miss the hungry sweep of feeling that followed it, the mad urge to strain closer to him.

  “Oh God, Genevieve,” he said against her mouth, and his voice was rough with desire. She’d heard that note before. “I missed you.”

  The couch stopped and Genevieve almost tumbled off his lap. “What am I doing? Get away from me!” She pushed away so quickly that she almost flew to the other seat. “That must never—it was only—it was only due to our past!” she cried. Her hands went to her hair. “Oh no, where are my pins?” The moment her servants saw her hair tumbling down her back, they would know in a flash what had happened, and when they saw she was with Tobiathe gossip would be all over London by the morrow.

  “It’s all right,” Tobias said, handing her three pins from the floor. “This is my house, not yours.”

  “Your house?” Genevieve said, stunned. “Why on earth are we here? That isn’t proper! I cannot visit your house un-chaperoned. I wish to go home immediately!”

  “I have no plans for anything nefarious,” Tobias said. “I merely wished to show you the house that I purchased. I bought it only this morning.”

  “You bought a house this morning,” she said, stunned. “I don’t wish to see your house, Mr. Darby. How dare you bring me here without even inquiring as to my wishes!”

  “I wanted to have a place to bring my wife,” he said, watching her. “When I have a wife, that is. You could pin up your hair and then I would bring you directly back to your house. There are no servants here to gossip, as I haven’t yet hired a staff.”

  He was obviously the same disreputable scamp he had been as a boy. Imagine bringing her to his house, for all the world as if she were a doxy who would fall into his arms and then his bed.

  “I am no longer fodder for your games, Mr. Darby,” Genevieve said sharply. “I am a grown woman and I mean to marry Lucius Felton. So the fact that we shared a kiss is simply due to a bit of nostalgia and nothing more. I will countenance no more of that behavior on your part.”

  “Absolutely not,” he said, with an air of dignified virtue that Genevieve didn’t believe for a moment. But she did have to pin up her hair. She could not return home looking like this.

  “As long as you understand,” she said, giving him a scowl, “that I’m not eighteen any longer. I may have behaved foolishly when I was very young, but now I’m a widow and I know about the world and men of your caliber.”

  “I can see that,” he said promptly.

  Genevieve looked out the carriage door. Tobias’s groom was holding open the door of the house. It was a beautiful house, tall without being overly narrow, elegant without being overbearing. “I’m not a loose woman,” she hissed at To-bias, trying once more to impress the truth upon him. “Just because we once intended to marry doesn’t mean that you can take advantage of me!”

  “I would never do such a thing, Genevieve.”

  “I would prefer that you address me as Lady Mulcaster,” she announced.

  And then she swept ahead of him up the stairs, so she didn’t see the way his eyes lingered on her curves. The Grecian tunic was delightful from every angle; the clinging silk left nothing about Lady Mulcaster’s curvy little figure to the imagination.

  Tobias swallowed and followed her up the stairs. Of course, she wasn’t loose, this girl of his. She was just Genevieve. And Genevieve could no more say no to him thaen sould marry that weasel she’d been kissing. She just didn’t understand that yet.

  Chapter 4

  In Which Genevieve Takes Lessons in Horticulture

  “This is lovely!” Genevieve said as she wandered around the dining room. “I’ve never seen wallpaper in this precise shade. Isn’t it apricot?”

  “Something like that,” Tobias answered. He was following her with an Argand lamp, holding it up so that she could look at the walls, and he could look at her. Her hair was far more lovely than the walls. Apricots and sunflowers, all mixed together with a bit of cream. And her face was just as adorable as he remembered, especially her gray-green eyes. They’d been passionate but naive when she was a girl. Now that passionate interest was tempered by a tantalizing hint of reserve.

  “Of course, you need furniture,” she continued. “There’s a cabinetmaker, George Bullock, in Tenterden Street who has some beautiful pieces.”

  “I have some furniture following from India, as well as rugs, tea caddies, that sort of thing.”

  “How wonderful! My friend Carola has a glorious rug from India, all jeweled colors like a cashmere shawl.”

  “I’m hoping my wife will direct a refurbishing,” he said, following her into the ballroom.

  “Your wife?” she asked. “But you must acquire some furniture. One doesn’t find a wife overnight, you know.”

  Doesn’t one? Tobias thought, watching her sweet round bottom as she leaned over and tugged at the tall windows that lined the ballroom.

  “Do these open?” she asked.

  “They lead to the garden,” he said, moving up next to her and twisting the handle sharply. It swung open into the night, and a rush of perfume came with it.

  “What a delicious smell!” Genevieve cried.

  “Honeysuckle opens at night.” He didn’t say that it was the garden that made him buy the house. He missed the lush beauty of Indian flowers.

  Genevieve danced out of the doors into the night, and To-bias knew in that instant that she hadn’t changed, not a single inch of her. She may have acquired the elegance of a très-grande dame, but she still had the exuberance that had sent her into a carriage with him at age eighteen. He would never forget seeing her for the first time. It was at a pestilently tedious party that his father had insisted his three sons attend, because he owed Genevieve’s father s
o much money. Darby Senior had owed everyone within fifty miles of their house substantial sums. “If one of you could marry the chit of the house,” his father had told them, “we’d be in the clover.”

  Tobias had figured that comment was really directed at Simon, his elder brother. Simon was his father’s heir, and already more polished and elegant than any gentleman their side of London. Whereas he and Giles were rough-and-tumble lads who scarcely knew their way around the ballroom. They were naught more than younger sons of a hardened gambler who always lost. Who would want either of them?

  She had. He’d walked into that party prepared to endure twenty minutes of turgid conversation, except there was a girl standing near the piano, and she looked at him. Genevieve was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life. It took him exactly two seconds to get from the door to her side, and when those greeny-gray eyes smiled at him, he was lost. Her whole face lit up with interest, with pleasure, with desire. He might have been young, but he had never been stupid.

  Three hours later they were creeping out her father’s door with all of his and Giles’s money in his pocket....An hour after that they were tooling down the road in a hired coach....Six hours after that, her father caught them. But in between...

  Well, he’d had years to think about what had happened during those six hours.

  It was hard to believe that he’d found Genevieve again. She was standing near a bank of snow-white honeysuckle that hung luminous in the moonlight. Obviously, she wouldn’t want to dash off to Gretna Green with him again. She considered herself in love with Felton. And that bastard Felton was apparently so sure of her that he didn’t mind sending her home with a rival. But she had kissed him in the carriage. She was pretending that episode never happened, but every sinew in his body was assuring him that it had.

  “Your hair is still extraordinary,” he said, reaching out to touch it. Long curling strands lay down her back, all the shades from brown to gold, as if rocks were spun with gold.