But it was too late for that. He was pulling on his gloves with short, sharp, angry tugs. ‘There is only one item left on the list for me to find. I am confident that I can retrieve it without bothering you for your help, if you can provide a more detailed description. I will leave my direction with your butler so you might send me the information by post. Good day, Miss Strickland, and goodbye.’
* * *
Once outside, Gregory waved off the hired carriage so that he might walk home. Or rather stalk. He wanted to stamp the whole way back to Wimpole Street where he could stamp to the brandy bottle in the study and slam every door on the way.
Damn Hope Strickland. Damn all women, for that matter. Never in his life had he taken such risks with his own livelihood. It was not bad enough that he had flirted with a woman from a family that employed him, he had compromised the honour of an innocent.
Even worse, he’d done it in broad daylight in a public room where they might have been interrupted at any time. Her younger sister haunted that library like its resident ghost. It had been a miracle that they had been alone together there long enough for anything to happen. Had Charity appeared, he would have educated both sisters on things that neither should learn before marriage.
It would have been even more embarrassing to be found taking a hand to himself in a nearby retiring room. But considering the state he’d been in when she finished, a release had been necessary, if only to prevent him from bringing the interlude to a more mutually satisfying conclusion.
Of late, he’d spent far too much time polishing his sword after visits with Miss Strickland, trying to maintain the control that had been shattered today. He had not planned for what had happened. He had hoped to encourage her to be honest and reveal whatever it was that had troubled her so on the previous evening. He had wanted to be her confidant, nothing more than that. He had asked for her trust.
Instead of the truth, she had given him a kiss. More than a kiss. She would have given him whatever he wanted. She had been more than eager to follow wherever he led. And what a sweet creature she had been. She had thoroughly enjoyed what they had done and made it clear from her questions that she had never experienced such a thing before.
He should have thrown her down on the hearth rug and shown her what it meant to be ruined for other men. Then, when he’d made the offer that had been on the tip of his tongue since last night, she would not have ruined it all by asking how best to appear innocent for the next fellow.
How big a fool was he that he’d thought there was some deeper meaning in what they’d just done? He was not just willing to marry her, for the sake of honour. Damn him, he wanted to do it.
It had always been his plan to marry, but he had thought of it as a distant thing, a crowning accomplishment to his success. But what more was needed to satisfy him, or his future wife? He had a house and no one to share it with and more money than he could spend on his own.
If he had been waiting to fall in love? He was not sure he believed in that particular emotion. But he would not be so foolish as to deny the existence of desire, which he felt each time he saw Hope Strickland. That was more than enough to be going on with.
If passion died, there would still be the protectiveness he felt each time she gave a worried tug on her hair. It made him want to take her away and show her just how pleasant it might be to take care of a husband and children, compared to a lunatic family that merely acted like children.
After he’d pleasured her today, he had come strolling back into the room, cocksure of his chances when he made his offer. But by the time he had managed to do up her gown, she’d been thinking of the Earl again. Truth and gallantry was rewarded with a kick in the teeth.
Eventually, Comstock’s heir would appear. Then, if the man was young and single, or even old and single, she would do what she had planned to do all along and throw herself at him.
At some point, he had forgotten that his primary job was to complete the entail. He had become so wrapped up in the idea of the troubled and beautiful Hope Strickland that he had been willing to break every rule he’d ever made for himself. He had violated the trust her family had put in him, lying and seducing, taking advantage of a woman never meant for him. He was becoming the man he had sworn he would never be.
Tomorrow he would grab the first vase he could find that might suit the Dowager’s list. Then he would leave Miss Strickland to sort out her own future, just as her sister had suggested he do. He would write to Leggett immediately and inform him of his resignation. Never mind what such an abrupt end might mean to his reputation. It could be no worse than what might happen if he lost control again and took Hope to bed.
Once he was free and did not have to see her every day, he would recover his equilibrium. Momentary madness had made him irrational, and willing to abandon his dearest principles in quest of a woman he could never have.
His thoughts of marriage were nothing more than an attempt to salve a guilty conscience. If he had been in his right mind, he would have seen that his offer would have been met with a surprisedno.
The whole escapade had been a result of man’s basest emotions—pride, envy and lust—as if he could not resist committing deadly sins in the presence of a woman named for a virtue. It was not, nor could it ever be, more than a huge mistake. For how foolish would he have to be to fall in love with Hope Strickland?
Chapter Ten
Gregory Drake was gone again and Hope was still not sure what she had said to drive him away. In fact, she had understood very little about the last hour of her life, other than that it had made her happy and that, for a few moments at least, she had been convinced that her problems no longer existed. Everything was going to be all right because Gregory Drake would make it so.
He had called her Hope and she was sure she had not responded properly to that. By the scowl on his face as she had called him Mr Drake, he had wanted to hear his name on her lips. She should have realised it. But was that the sort of error that could make a man leave for ever?
He must have thought her terribly stupid for asking the questions that she had, but she had needed some clarity. What they had done seemed like the sort of thing that should result in a proposal and she could not exactly compound one transgression with another by demanding that he marry her.
Apparently, it had not been necessary for him to offer. She was sure that what had happened between them was improper. But it was also an easily kept secret. There was no physical evidence and he was not the sort of man who would tell anyone about it.
She, on the other hand, desperately needed a confidant. There was much she still didn’t understand about what happened between men and women. A girl from a normal family would have been able to ask her mother, but she’d lost hers a decade before such questions had occurred to her. Barring that, she should ask Grandmama.
And what a disaster that would be. The last thing Hope needed was a story about what had happened on that same sofa, a generation ago. If she refused to keep her own life secret, how could Hope trust that she would not brag to the world that her granddaughter was following in her notorious footsteps?
Faith would explain things properly. Faith was married and married women knew things. Sometimes they whispered secrets to each other, just as unmarried girls did. But it was easy to tell by their knowing looks and sly smiles that what they said was to be shared only amongst the matrimonial sorority.
Faith could help. But Faith was in Italy and could do nothing for weeks. Hope needed someone now.
That left Charity. It vexed her that she should have to go to the youngest member of the family for advice. But though the Lord had failed to bless her little sister with beauty, he’d more than made up for the lack with intelligence. She’d learned more from books than any of them did from experience. She would know what had happened and what to do about it. She could tell Hope what must be said to bring back Mr Drake, beyond calling him Gregory in the letter he was expecting.
