Page 6 of My Hellion, My Heart
“Yes, I’ve heard about the type of company you prefer,” she said with a sidelong glance that had held no judgment, only a measure of concern. “Perhaps you should consider widening your prospects.”
He hadn’t shared her enthusiasm, but had struck upon an idea as he’d watched her with William. He had no interest in widening his prospects. There was no other woman he felt more at ease with than Rose. Theirs could be a marriage of friendship. Of convenience.Ifshe would have him.
The relief he’d felt that day had been instantaneous, and he’d left Rose and William with the idea percolating in the back of his mind. The damned stipulation in the letters patent made no mention of when an heir had to be conceived. Perhaps, as time went on, he and Rose might be easy enough with one another to attempt to produce an heir, as awkward and uninspiring as the task would likely be. However, at the moment, he needed only to concern himself with attaining a wife by the end of his thirtieth year. And so Henry had, many months later, sent the proposal to Rose. Everything hinged on her answer.
“Will you be going out, my lord?” Stevens asked, interrupting his thoughts. His eyes glanced up the open shaft of the stairwell in silent question about what to do with the women who had just recently been escorted to Henry’s bedchamber.
He could not face them again. Not today. Perhaps not ever. There were plenty of other women he could call for…though if he was to be married soon, maintaining that sort of colorful company would be disrespectful to his wife.
“Yes,” Henry answered his butler. “I’m going to Devon Place.”
“Should I call for your carriage?”
“No,” he answered quickly, the muscles in his legs aching at the thought of being confined to a boxed-in conveyance. “I’ll walk.”
Henry paused in the foyer, knowing his staff could be trusted with the utmost discretion. After all, they’d witnessed far worse debauchery in the residence over the past few years after his return from the Peninsula. The presence of two light-skirts wouldn’t make Marbury or Stevens or any of them bat an eye. Hell, it was far tamer than the intimate gathering he’d had a few weeks ago that had lasted three full days. “Have Billings take the women in my bedchamber back to their place of employment in the east end.”
“Of course, my lord.”
He took up his coat and hat, permitted Stevens to tighten up his loose cravat, and stepped outside. Leicester Square was still a month away from greening, and so it appeared brown and dull as he walked south, toward Irving Street. His mother’s home was along the Pall Mall, giving him a good ten minutes at his breakneck pace to clear his head and get his pulse back under control.
His mother would not press about the necessary marriage, he knew. She only wanted to wish him a happy birthday and had probably had Mrs. Baskings prepare the special French chocolate truffles she always did on this day. He’d stay for truffles and tea and then be on his way to the Palace of Westminster, where there was an expected address from members of Parliament. Losing himself in his political duties would be a fine way to pass the day and forget Camilla and Mary, who would be returned to The Cock and the Crown and tell all who listened how Earl Langlevit had panicked and run.
Bloody hell.
He increased his pace and tried to focus on the paving stones before him. The street was busy, the chilled morning air having warmed enough to invite the stench of refuse. He felt the press of people as they passed him on the right and veered around his left, heading in the opposite direction.
A suddencrackfrom behind took his breath away and made his legs freeze.Just a driver leading a horse with his whip, his rational voice told him. But then a creature rushed toward his ankles, yapping sharply, and it was all Henry could do not to kick at the animal in response, every nerve within him firing in violent bursts. His fingers curled into rigid fists at his sides as his muscles tensed, ready to attack. To defend. To fight.
A dog,the voice said.Just a dog.
His internal voice was soft, though, dampened by the thunderous rushing of blood in his ears. Henry darted around the animal and its mistress, who had scooped it up and tried to apologize. Nodding brusquely, he hurried on, his ears still ringing, his clothing heavy and suddenly too constricting. Underneath, his skin grew sticky and hot, then cold and clammy, and just when he thought he might never take another deep breath of air again, his eyes tripped on the familiar front steps of his mother’s house, Devon Place.
He stormed up them and let himself inside without bothering to knock. The cool air in his mother’s house hit him, and he sucked in a breath. Then another and a third, and he hated himself more with every one. The mere crack of a whip and the annoying bark of a dog had made him nearly lose his wits, bringing back nightmarish memories he fought to keep dead and buried. Bracing against the door, Henry closed his eyes and breathed deeply, just as a physician had instructed him to do after he’d been injured on the Peninsula.
Meditation, as the physician termed it, had helped Henry breathe through the pain of his wounded back and shoulders, and it had helped calm him after his last—and final—mission into France. A disastrous mission that he didn’t wish to think about ever again. Instead, he pictured the green fields and hills of Hartstone in Essex. The deep, cool paths through the woods there and the sound of the gurgling Brecken Kill running through it. Mentally, he ran the deadly obstacle course he’d built deep in the woods of his estate, feeling the strain ebb from his body with each turn in his mind’s eye—through the icy river, down the rocky hillside, across the gorge, back into the forest. After several breaths, his heartbeat slowed and calmed.
“Lord Langlevit?”
Henry opened his eyes and saw his mother’s butler, Andrews, approaching him, a frown upon his face. “My apologies that I was not present to see you in.”
“Not at all, Andrews,” he said, whisking off his hat and allowing his mother’s faithful servant to help him from his coat, as well.
“Her ladyship is waiting for you in the front parlor,” Andrews said and then led Henry down the short hallway off the foyer. He heard her voice through the calming pulse in his ears.
Andrews announced him seconds before Henry stepped inside his mother’s favorite day room. The light-blue walls were a soothing color, and his eyes went instantly to them, skipping over his mother’s figure in one chair and a second figure on a sofa. The blue paint reminded him of the open sky over one of Hartstone’s fields.
“Langlevit?”
His mother’s voice crept into the imagined sky.
“Henry.”
He finally let go of the image and met his mother’s concerned gaze. Sense rushed back into him, and he remembered they were not alone. He stood taller and looked at his mother’s guest.
A woman with dark, upswept hair, soft curls at her temples. A pair of unforgettable deep-blue eyes, nearly violet, stared at him, wide and alarmed. The apples of her cheeks were pink, her lips parted in surprise. And when Henry’s mind slammed back into gear, he realized whom he was staring at.
“Darling,” his mother said. “You remember Princess Irina, don’t you?”
