“Those are the rules of the land, sir,” she replied dryly. “Especially those of the Upper Ten Thousand.”
He shrugged. “You already know how I feel about the ton.”
Hiding her smile, she took his assistance inside and sat facing him, noticing that his shirt looked loved, his breeches worn, and his boots scuffed; this was an outfit he had worn many times before. “Were you riding before you came for me?”
“Yes,” he replied. “It helps me think.”
“I can understand that,” she nodded. “Repetitive motions, things you can do without focusing too hard on them, do let your mind roam.”
“And what comes up when your mind does roam?” he asked cunningly.
“How to make meat pie,” she replied flatly.
He threw his head back and laughed. “I like a woman who can think on her feet and go toe-to-toe in a battle of wits.”
“I haven’t had the company to exercise that muscle much,” she admitted. “I like witty banter but most of the ladies only concernthemselves with the newest fashion or if silk is better than lace. No one wants to talk about the tiers of ancient Roman society or what was Alexander the Great’s reason for dominating the East, spreading Hellenistic culture as he went.”
His brows inched up. “You have those ideas ruminating in the back of your head?”
“Sometimes,” she sighed. “I was the proud bluestocking of Lady Easton’s School for Accomplished Ladies. My teachers adored me but the rest of the girls not so much.”
“How did you know?”
“It is very telling when you approach a group of girls and they all fall silent the moment you are within five feet of them,” Bridget replied matter-of-factly. “I did find two bosom friends though, Lady Eleanor and Lady Josephine. They stayed with me even after my family fell from grace.”
“Hm,” William trapped his fingertips on the windowsill. “I have had the same experience. My friends from Oxford and Eton have been with me since the worst of times.”
She inclined her head. “How bad?”
“I was one-and-twenty. The very night I got my fifty thousand, I went to Whites, the so-called bastion of male camaraderie, and drank myself into a wheelbarrow—literally. I woke up on thebanks of the Thames, wet, and had somehow decided to sleep in a rotten pushcart, half-naked.”
“Oh, my word,” she pressed a hand to her heart.
“When Colin Lightholder,Baron Thornbury, and Andrew Pembroke,Viscount Suttonfound me, stinking of brine, sick to my stomach, an inch away from contracting consumption, I was told I had gambled my estate away on a game of Faro, that luckily I’d won and the other lord had put up his house somewhere in Oxford that I’d won also.”
She leaned in, eyes intent. “What did you do?”
“By right, I should have taken the house and used it to my benefit, but then the lord came begging, telling me his wife and incapacitated mother were in the house, and that he could not afford to lose it. So I left it in his hands.” William shrugged. “He pays me a hundred pounds every year but that sum is set aside and I have not touched it.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “No reason. Just not interested, I suppose.”
I bet there is. Maybe you feel guilty about almost taking his home from him.
Sitting back, Bridget gazed at him with curiosity as another piece set itself into the puzzle that was the Beast of Brookhaven.
William,she reminded herself.There are two sides to him. The person he wants others to see is the Beast of Brookhaven, the person he wants me to see is William Hartwell.
He raised a brow. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
She wiped her face into a look of pure innocence. “Like what?”
“As if I am a mystery you are trying to solve,” he replied. “What I present to you is who I am.”
“Actually, no you are not,” she said quietly. “I have observed you from the moment we interacted. You have two lives,Sir. The rakehell is who you want others to see, a dissolute profligate void of norms and values, only seeking his own pleasure by whatever means necessary. But in private, you have heart, compassion, and a conscience.
“What circumstances have prevented you from showing this true, noble character? What is stopping you from showing yourself as a kind and decent man?”
