Beyond A Wicked Kiss Read online

  Ria's bags were secured to the roof of the carriage, and West's mount was tethered at the rear. The liveried groom offered Ria and West rugs for warmth before taking his seat beside the driver. The carriage rolled slowly at first, then with more speed as its own momentum carried it forward.

  Inside, Ria tucked one of the rugs around her while West fiddled with the lantern so it would remain securely on its hook. When he was done he sat back and propped his feet on the bench opposite him, which put the heels of his boots just beside Ria. She glanced at them pointedly, but said nothing, and he did not remove them. He was not the sort of man one took to task for these lapses, she realized, though he did not seem to mind when she tried. On the contrary, it appeared he found her censure mildly amusing and gave it no more due than he would if she'd told him his stock was askew.

  "You are staring at me," she said. "Has no one told you it is rude?"

  "Everyone, in fact, has told me."

  She raised one gloved hand quickly to her mouth to cover her smile.

  "Why do you do that?" he asked.

  Ria's blue-gray eyes widened above her hand as she spoke from behind it. "What?"

  "Cover your smile. Why do you try to hide the fact that I make you smile—or dare I say it?—sometimes even make you laugh?"

  His observation sobered her, and she lowered her hand to her lap. "I think it best not to encourage you."

  "Why not? If you are of a temperament that appreciates humor, then why do you not seek more of it? You really should be encouraging me, instead of the opposite."

  "You have never seemed to require any encouragement," she said. "Surely it is my prerogative to withhold it."

  West ignored that. "Is it because laughter is an intimacy?"

  Ria gave a small start that could not properly be blamed on the jouncing carriage. "I don't know what you mean." But she did, and he most likely knew it. In fact, he had nailed the thing perfectly, and she did not thank him for it.

  "You have never impressed as thick-witted, endeavor not to do so now."

  "We are not moving so fast that I cannot jump without fear of injury," she said, "nor so far from the school that I cannot walk back to it. You have never impressed as insufferable, endeavor not to do so now."

  West used his index finger to raise the brim of his beaver hat a fraction so he might better observe her. Her equanimity had been sorely tested, but she was improved for it. There was high color in her cheeks, and he had struck sparks in the flint-colored eyes. Her wide mouth was slightly parted and the pearly ridge of her teeth was visible where she had clamped them. He would never have cause to say that she was beautiful in a temper, but temper had stripped her of artifice and left her features beautifully animated. This latter state was infinitely preferable to the former.

  "It occurs, Miss Ashby, that if you married you would have no need of a guardian."

  Ria was no longer reactive to the abrupt shifts in his conversation. "Your Grace is a mathematician—therefore, you must study the equation. On one side there are but eight months before my twenty-fifth year and independence. On the other side there is marriage. If we agree that marriage is for a lifetime, and I might reasonably expect to live to see my sixtieth birthday, that is—"

  "Four hundred twenty-eight months," West said with nary a pause. "If you marry tomorrow."

  "I shall trust your figures," she said. "That is four hundred twenty-eight months that I must endure without being accorded my natural rights. It is not a difficult decision to make. If you thought you hit upon a plan to rid yourself of me, you would do well to revise it. Are you carrying your knife?"

  West gave a shout of laughter so loud the horses were startled. The carriage pitched alarmingly until the driver got them under control. It required somewhat longer for West to rein himself in. "By God, Ria, but you are a most singular woman. I cannot remember when I have been so entertained."

  "Outside the company of your friends."

  "Perhaps," he said thoughtfully, sobering a bit, "but I did not qualify it. What do you know of my friends?"

  "Precious little. I was only informed that wherever you gather there is certain to be a stir."

  "Tenley." He did not wait for her to confirm it. "It is like him to say so."

  "Is it true?"

  "On occasion, yes, though to say we cause a stir is an exaggeration." West remembered that it was only this summer past that he and his friends had cut up at a picnic at the Battenburn estate. They had engaged in so much ribald humor over the peculiar feminine properties of a peach that South had nearly choked. Then there had been that business at the theatre when they had stopped the play with their laughter and were taken to task by the lead actress, Miss India Parr herself. That had been but a few months ago. And how much humor had they wrung from East's predicament with Lady Sophia? It would have been a kindness if they had ejected themselves from Lord Helmsley's reception. "Then again," West said, "Tenley may be in the right of it."

  "I thought he might be."

  "Yes, well, we conducted ourselves with due gravity at the Abbey."

  "You must have. I did not know your friends were there."

  "They have never not been there when they were needed."

  Ria could think of one time, but it had been many years ago, and perhaps they had not been his friends then. She wondered if they would have been willing to throw themselves on his back to protect him from his father's cane. "Is it true you have a name for yourselves?"

  Tenley again? West wondered. Or had she learned it from the duke by way of the colonel? It was not commonly known, though people remarked on their names often enough. "At Hambrick Hall we called ourselves the Compass Club. Northam. Southerton. Eastlyn."

  "And you are Westphal."

  "Now. Then I was Evan and my friends were Brendan, Matthew, and Gabriel. The titles came later. It was my contention that if enough people experienced an untimely passing, they might each take up a title. A little ghoulish, perhaps, but it is the thing boys get up to when they are bored. When we realized what connected the names, it was not long before someone suggested the Compass Club. They called me West because it fit the theme, and they meant to include me, but we all knew I would never be Westphal. It was not only that I was a bastard but that the duke had so little to do with me."

  "You bear an uncanny resemblance to him."

  "I hope you do not mean that."

  Ria could not determine if he was teasing her. His voice held no inflection and his glance was remote now. She chose not to offer support for her comment and asked him to continue instead.

  "It would not matter if, God forbid, I had been a stamp of him," West said. "The truth is, without his public acknowledgement of what everyone knew to be the truth, I could never inherit. He supported my education at Hambrick, later at Cambridge, and he arranged a quarterly allowance for me. None of it, though, was done in his own name. My benefactor was Mr. Thaddeus Hood."

  "Mr. Hood? But I am certain he was your father's solicitor before Mr. Ridgeway."

  "Yes, I know. I don't think there was anyone who didn't comprehend that the duke provided for me, but no one said so."

  "You will allow it is peculiar."

  West had said as much as he wanted to say on the subject and he was not anxious to hear Ria's opinion. He brushed her comment aside as though it were of no import and resumed telling her about the Compass Club. "Matthew became Viscount Southerton while we were yet at Hambrick. For East it was not long after, I think. Brendan's father and brother died while he was with the regiments in India. He had to sell his commission and return to England."

  "So all of you were wrong," Ria said after a moment. "You told me you all knew you would never be Westphal, yet exactly that has come to pass."

  "You not only stick the point with a sure hand" he said dryly, "but you insist on twisting it."

  This time she did not try to hide her cat-in-the-cream smile. "How is it that the four of you have remained friends for so long?"

&nbs
p; West shrugged as if he had never given the matter any thought. "Similar interests, I imagine, and East, North, and South are often invited to the same affairs, so they are in one another's company whether they like it or not."

  "And you?"

  "They torture me by inveigling invitations on my behalf. Even among the ton, there are always those hostesses who are not squeamish about a bastard rounding out the numbers at the table."

  "You cannot possibly respond to all the invitations that will come your way now. Your plate must already be full. You will be the guest of honor, I suspect, no longer the one assuring the numbers are even." Ria saw West shift as though discomfited, and she realized how slow her wits had become of late. "That is why you've come to Gillhollow, isn't it? It has little enough to do with your amusement and everything to do with your fear. You are running from the ton."

  "Hardly running."

  "That is because you can afford a horse and carriage."

  "True. There is something to what you say."

  "You do not mean to deny it?"

  "Why? I can freely admit that I would rather take my chances walking alone in Holbern late at night than sit through one of Lady Stafford's interminable musicales. I am not sure fear characterizes my feelings about the latter, but there is certainly a pronounced aversion to those affairs."

  Ria tucked the rug around her legs where the carriage's jouncing had loosened it. "Well," she said with emphatic finality, "I do not care what has motivated you to come here—the fact that you are willing to assist me in finding Jane is enough."

  West decided that nothing good could come of arguing the point regarding who was assisting whom. Ria had already demonstrated that she would fall in with his plans—for a price. He just had to make certain she did not bankrupt him in the process. It was difficult to imagine a more lowering circumstance than applying to her for an allowance.

  Though she could not divine his thoughts, Ria saw that he was amused again. She was learning that while it took little enough to divert him, he was possessed of a most singular mind. "Why did you not want me to instruct Miss Taylor to give Mr. Lytton his marching orders? You know very well that he has not been helpful."

  "He has had little enough to work with until now. It hardly seemed fair. He may prove his worth in London."

  "I don't believe you, you know. There is something more."

  West shrugged. "Certainly you must make up your own mind. I will not try to convince you of the truth of it."

  "I should like to hear about that society you mentioned. I am here, after all, and you did agree to tell me if I accompanied you to Ambermede."

  "I've not forgotten." He considered removing his feet from the opposite bench and sitting up, perhaps tipping his hat back into place, but then decided he would not surrender his comfort to the bishops, even to give them the consequence they were due. "For almost as long as there has been a Hambrick Hall, there has been the Society of Bishops. Like Amy and Jane, they have their blood oaths and secrets, though I believe considerably more than a single drop of blood is involved and their secrets largely remain just that." He held up one hand, forestalling the question he could see hovering on her lips. "Yes, I know some, and no, I will not speak of them."

  Ria feigned indifference. "It does not matter. They are only boys—I have some idea of the mischief they get up to."

  "No," West said. "You don't. There is very little in the way of mischief done by them and much in the way of cruelty. They are bullies and blighters. It may be that individually they would not provoke others, but as members of the Society they do not act alone. They hold themselves as superior to everyone outside of their circle and admit members only after they have proven their worth by some arbitrary standards."

  "Your Grace is describing the ton."

  "Am I?" He reflected on his words and shook his head. "No, even I acquit the ton of the sort of organized viciousness the bishops promote."

  Ria wondered if that were entirely true. He had never demonstrated any tolerance for the foibles and mores of the ton. It was most telling that while he found humor often in the unlikeliest of places, he never found it there. She suspected he would have to care much less in order to enjoy himself more.

  "Did you never want to be a bishop?" Ria asked. Seeing his derisive expression, she defended her question. "It is a perfectly reasonable poser. You must allow that envy stirs some to hold others in contempt."

  "Sour grapes, you mean?"

  "Yes. Sour grapes."

  "You must judge the truth of this for yourself—I never had the least desire to become one of them. Once they promised North he could join their Society if he would approach a certain fortuneteller performing at the local fair and ask to see her—"

  Ria regarded him, curious that he broke off so abruptly and now looked discomfited. "Yes? See her what?"

  "It would be deuced improper of me to say."

  "Because you are my guardian?"

  "Bloody hell, Miss Ashby. It is because you are a woman."

  "Unless I have misunderstood, so was the fortuneteller."

  His eyes narrowed, taking her measure. "No," he said finally. "You cannot provoke me. It was a good effort, though."

  She sighed. "Not good enough. Will you not at least tell me what Lord Northam did?"

  "Of course. He met the challenge and invited South, East, and me to share in the accomplishment. We reported our success to the bishops and they predictably reneged on their promise. In fact, they were furious that we had done what they could not. We were fortunate to escape. They sincerely meant to hurt us."

  "I see." But she did not, not clearly. "It still seems rather more mischief than criminal."

  "And it was... right up to the point when they came at us with slingshots and pellets."

  "Oh."

  "Indeed." He removed his hat and pointed to a spot in his hairline just above his right temple. "Do you see that dent, Miss Ashby? That was from a glassy blue-green cat's eye measuring one-half-inch in diameter."

  She did not see the crease in his skull but she had no reason to doubt his word. "It is fortunate, then, that you are remarkably thickheaded, else you might have been killed."

  It was not quite the sympathetic response he had hoped to elicit, but he supposed it would do for now. He chose to ignore her characterization of him as thickheaded and go on. "Then you fully comprehend the problem."

  "They are complete ruffians."

  He smiled faintly at this description. "That is still rather too kind, but it captures their essence. Barlough—he was the archbishop of the Society for most of the years the four of us were at Hambrick—took it upon himself to collect a tax from anyone who wanted to cross the courtyard or use the common areas. He seized whatever struck his fancy, and it was not the material things he craved, but the distress he caused by relieving others of their possessions. He demanded prized tin soldiers from the youngest boys, French postcards from the older ones, coin from those who had it, and sweets from Eastlyn."

  "Sweets?"

  "Iced cakes. Muffins. Tarts. That sort of thing. East had a fondness for them in those days and received a parcel almost every week from his mother. I can tell you, he parted with them most reluctantly." West did not return his hat to his head but placed it on the bench beside him. "The bishops' tribunal once forced South to steal the questions for a history examination and give them over. That caused quite a row when it was discovered."

  Ria considered what she had been told. Absent from these descriptions was how the Compass Club retaliated, if indeed, they had. "I think you are not telling all. What response did you and your friends make?"

  West grinned. "Something with wit attached. We threw peaches at the fellows with the slingshots, stole Barlough's chamber pot and named our own price for its return, and South, being South, did not steal the examination but committed it to memory, then recited his long-winded answers to the tribunal."

  Ria's brow furrowed. "I'm afraid the wit escapes me."


  "Perhaps if you were to hear it from the others," he said, shrugging. "I am not accounted to be the best storyteller, though if you apply to South for the particulars, you must be prepared to make a day of it."

  She smiled, for there was no mistaking from his tone that he held his friend in high esteem. "You make me regret that my own education was confined to the schoolroom at the manor. It was all very dull. My tutors and governesses did not inspire me to make mischief. In any event, there was no one but the servants to bedevil, and that would have been unworthy of me."

  "Tenley?"

  "He was often away. I saw surprisingly little of him." Ria did not want to linger on the subject of Tenley. "While I found your discourse edifying, I fail to comprehend what the bishops of Hambrick Hall have to do with Miss Weaver's Academy. We have no society like them at the school. The girls form clutches and circles that sometimes exclude others, and while I discourage it, there seems not to be the same mean spiritedness as your bishops. At least, I hope not. I shall be very disappointed in them if you are about to tell me that you know it is otherwise."

  "I have no knowledge of that."

  "Then you do not suspect Jane's classmates of having a hand in her leaving the school."

  "No." West could not miss her palpable relief. "I apologize. I did not realize your thinking had taken that turn."

  "What have I misunderstood? I thought you were warning me about the girls by way of comparison to your Society of Bishops."

  "Not at all. I was warning you about the Society."

  "That is not helpful," she said in clipped accents. "What have boys from Hambrick Hall to do with my girls, and most particularly with Jane? Is one of them responsible for enticing her away? Is that the sort of vicious rite of passage they practice with their initiates?"

  West leaned forward and took Ria's gloved hands in both of his. He held her glance and spoke softly, forcing her to ignore the continuous creaking and rumbling of the carriage, and concentrate on the sound of his voice. "I have gone about the thing badly," he said. "It was not my intention to advance either of the ideas you have mentioned because, in truth, I had not considered them. I assumed when Jane spoke of a proper gentleman, she was speaking of someone who had reached his age of majority, not a schoolboy. It bears thinking that you may have hit the mark closer than I."