Lottie was like the finest, rarest wine. Priceless. A man could spend a lifetime scouring the best vineyards, sampling years and varieties, and still never find anyone as glorious as she. But tohave had her, to have won her heart, and then to have dashed it to bits beneath his boot heel? A terrible, dreadful waste.
Sacrilegious, even.
She nodded. “What he wanted was me. I’ll never know quite why. Oh, he told me he loved me, and perhaps he did in his own way. I don’t think he was capable of loving anyone else, not even himself. Perhaps it was because I was the most sought-after of the crop of debutantes I curtseyed with.”
She shrugged, her smile pained. “Either way, it hardly matters now.”
“It matters to me, Lottie.” He swallowed hard against a rush of raw emotion. “Youmatter to me.”
But Lottie didn’t only matter to him. She also mattered to Pandy. To Cat. To Lord and Lady Sidmouth, to the countless others in her charmed coterie. She mattered to so many. He hated that she hadn’t mattered enough to the man she’d wed, despised Grenfell for all the hurt and damage he’d caused. He never wished ill of the dead, but it was a bloody good thing the man was buried and gone.
“I…” She hesitated, looking flustered. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You needn’t say anything at all. Thank you for telling me about your past. It helps me to understand how you’ve become the woman you are.”
“I wouldn’t trade the woman I’ve become for the one I was then,” she told him firmly. “Not for anything. I’ve worked hard to be who I am. I’ve wept many tears, fought bitter battles. But through it all, I’ve come to know myself, I think.”
“And I admire the woman you are, quite thoroughly—your wit, your spirit, your dauntless determination, every part of you.” Again, it wasn’t flattery. There was more he could say, more that hewantedto say, and yet, he felt like an awkward lummox in her presence. All the easy charm and practiced easehe had accumulated over the years had fled him in the face of stark, earnest appreciation.
The regal mask she so often kept in place shifted, and he was treated to a rare glimpse of the vulnerability hiding beneath as her face softened. “No gentleman has ever said something so kind to me before.”
How astounding to realize that no man before him had ever told this glorious woman that he admired her. Not just for her beauty, but for her mind, her determination, her sensuality, for all the nuances that made her who she was.
And suddenly, it disturbed him greatly that he had not been entirely forthright with her. She deserved his candor and so much more.
“In the interest of honesty, there is something I should tell you,” he said, broaching the subject of the Wicked Dukes Society for the first time. “When we spoke about my grandmother and Wingfield Hall, I wasn’t entirely truthful. For the last few years, Camden, Kingham, Riverdale, Whitby, Richford, and I have been operating a secret society.”
He paused, gauging her reaction, for whilst he knew why he and his friends had begun the society, he couldn’t deny that it all seemed so very gauche and seedy now. Earning one’s own money was bourgeois. But earning one’s own money through carnal depravity was more than one shade beyond the pale.
“Go on,” she said softly.
“Membership in the Society is selective and costly,” he continued. “And for good reason. The revelries we host are indulgent odes to hedonism. Members are assured anonymity and privacy to do whatever they wish with whomever they desire, as long as all parties are willing.”
“Do you take part in these revelries of yours?” she asked, her gaze searching.
“I have in the past,” he admitted, “though the appeal is no longer there for me. The next fête is in a month’s time, and I’ll not be joining the revelers.”
“Why do you tell me this now?”
“Because I don’t want to hide the truth from you. And because I want you to know the true reason I am desperate to keep Wingfield Hall. The Society holds its revelries there. If we lose Wingfield Hall, we will have to begin anew, and the six of us have already invested a great deal of time and funds upon it that we won’t be able to recoup. Not all of us can afford such a loss of investment and future funds.”
He was grateful that he was in no danger of penury. But for some of his friends, the only wealth they possessed was what they earned from the Society.
“Thank you for entrusting me with your secret,” Lottie told him. “You have my word that I shan’t tell another soul.”
He trusted her implicitly, and now that he had revealed the full truth to her, it was as if a great weight had been lifted from his chest. He felt lighter. Relieved.
“Thank you,” he said simply.
The footman arrived with the next course then, mutton pieà la Perigord. As usual, it was delicious, redolent with the earthiness of truffles and the rich flavors of bacon and butter. But they both ate sparingly, a new anticipation burning hotly between them. Not for the next course, but for what would inevitably come after this dinner.
By the time theblancmangearrived, he was positively aflame.
Lottie’s spoon hesitated over her plate, her gaze meeting his. “I find myself feeling quite greedy as well.”
It was a return to the beginning of their dinner, and his cockstand was instant, as was his reaction. Thank God. He mighthave shouted his relief to the heavens, so great was his relief—he didn’t give a damn about theblancmange.
Brandon shot from his chair, extending a hand to her. “Come here.”
