Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

S omething furry flew beneath Lottie’s skirts.

She screamed, upending her teacup, and jolted to her feet. Grasping fists of silk and petticoats, she lifted her hem to her knees in an instinctive reaction, trying to make certain that it—whatever it was—was disabused of the notion it might make a home beneath her gown.

“Cat!” cried a girlish voice.

Belatedly, Lottie became aware of the presence of a small child. Her cheeks were rosy, her green eyes were dancing, and she had a head full of dark ringlets. Her small face gave no doubt who she was—Brandon’s illegitimate daughter.

“Pandy, what manner of scrape have you found yourself in now?” he demanded of the girl, his voice stern.

“I’m playing chase-chase with Cat,” the girl explained.

Lottie glanced frantically about her ankles just in time to watch a streak of brown-and-white fur disappear under the settee. She could have sworn the creature had appeared a bit large to be a feline.

“Who is Cat?” Brandon asked patiently, “and what, my darling girl, is chase-chase?”

Her heart still pounding over the sudden interruption and ensuing fright, Lottie glanced in the duke’s direction. Which proved a dreadful mistake. Because he was on his haunches, at eye level with the child, putting his handsome profile and muscled thighs on display. And he was speaking with such tenderness that something inside her that had previously been all hard, jagged edges smoothed and softened, despite her every inclination to remain as impenetrable as granite where the Duke of Brandon was concerned.

“Chase-chase is when I tries t’catch Cat,” the girl said with the excited guilelessness only the truly young can muster. “Cat’s my dog friend. It be great fun, Duke. Wanna play?”

“You’ve a dog named Cat?” Brandon’s brow furrowed. “Since when, Pandy?”

“Since yesterday. I finded her in the garden whilst Nurse were napping. I gived her a stewed pig trotter, and we’ve been friends ever since.”

Brandon winced. “What the devil were you doing with a pig trotter?”

“You mustn’t say devil ,” the girl chided, her eyes wide, whispering the last word. “Someone might hear.”

Lottie rolled her lips inward to keep from laughing. She couldn’t help herself. The scene before her was, quite possibly, the most ludicrous she had ever encountered. To be sure, it was positively scandalous. Most aristocrats kept their bastard children discreetly housed out of sight, cared for financially, if in no other manner. Their miscellany certainly weren’t running about their town houses. And they absolutely weren’t luring stray dogs with pig trotters and naming them Cat.

“Forgive me,” he offered with a sigh.

“You’d best ’pologize to the lady too,” the girl said.

Grimly, Brandon turned to Lottie, his vibrant eyes causing a frisson of unwanted awareness as they connected with hers. “I beg your pardon as well, Lady Grenfell.”

What was it about the sight of this gorgeous man with his daughter that moved her? It wasn’t merely that he was handsome. She had seen any number of handsome rogues in her day. And it wasn’t the lingering, persistent memory of his mouth on hers either. Rather, it was something far more complex. Something she refused to examine too closely, for fear of what she would discover about herself.

No, best to place those dangerous feelings where they belonged—buried deep and forgotten.

“Your apology is accepted, Your Grace,” she said, striving for a suitably serious tone. “Er, perhaps we should attempt to rescue…Cat.”

It truly was an unusual name for a dog. And the creature had darted beneath the furniture faster than a streak of lightning across the sky. He was decidedly not accustomed to so much commotion, which perhaps explained the game of chase-chase that the child was engaging in. The girl chased, and poor, startled “Cat” hid.

“You gots to be quiet,” the girl told Lottie solemnly, pressing a finger to her lips. “Shh.”

For a wild, foolish moment, Lottie was struck by the realization that this cozy little gathering of father and daughter could have been something she would have been a part of. Had she accepted the duke’s proposal of marriage, she would have been his wife. The mothering of the child—who had presumably been left to the care of the duke—might have fallen upon Lottie’s shoulders. And oh, how she would have enjoyed it, regardless of the scandalous nature of the girl’s birth.

Once upon a time, she had wished for children of her own. But now she understood that being a mother was a dream she must forget. Not just because she remained uncertain whether she was barren—which was a distinct possibility, for neither her marriage nor her liaisons had produced issue, though she had taken great care with her lovers to prevent such an outcome. But also because she couldn’t bear to ever be so vulnerable by marrying again. Having endured the misery of unrequited love once, she knew she couldn’t survive it a second time.

No indeed, children and a husband were not for her. Fortunately, Grenfell had left Lottie a more than generous widow’s portion and a town house unencumbered by the entail. She was a woman of means and independence, and that—she reminded herself sternly—was how she preferred it to be.

“Come, Cat,” the girl was saying, peering beneath the settee, her ringlets dancing about her small head. “Come out, sweetheart. I ain’t gonna let the wolf man get you. I’ll save you from that rotter always and forever and ever and ever.”

The wolf man?

Lottie turned a questioning look upon Brandon. He sighed again, rising to his full, impressive height and running his fingers through his dark, wavy locks, leaving it tousled in a rakish manner that only served to heighten his appeal.

“She has been having nightmares about the wolf man ever since she arrived,” he confided in Lottie, keeping his tone quiet.

“I dreamded ’bout him,” the girl insisted, giving Lottie a wide, green-eyed look. “Ever since Mama goed away. She’s gone on a grand adventure, ’n young girls can’t go on adventures. Did you know that, missus? They might fall off the ship and get drowneded.”

Lottie bit her lip, her heart squeezing with a pang of sympathy. She knew she ought to be scandalized, for it simply was not done to parade one’s natural child before company. However, the child was innocent and sweet, and Lottie couldn’t help but to be charmed. And saddened to have her suspicions confirmed. The girl’s mother had indeed abandoned her to Brandon.

She cleared her throat against a rush of emotion. “I hadn’t realized that, my dear. You ought to call me Lottie if we shall be friends. And what shall I call you?”

“My name’s Pandora,” the girl said, straightening with almost comical speed, throwing her thin shoulders back. “Duke calls me Pandy. You can call me either, but I reckon Pandy suits me better ’cause it sounds far more lovelier, don’t it?”

Lottie’s heart gave a pang. “It does indeed sound lovely. It’s settled, then. I shall call you Pandy, and you shall call me Lottie. Now, then. Shall we rescue Cat from her hiding place?”

The girl shook her head, her expression adorably serious. “Can’t say as I’ve ever managed to get her out of a hiding place unless I offer her food. Her likes tarts, cheese, roast chicken, and all manner of puddings. But thus far, it’s pig trotters what’s her favorite. Have you got any of those?”

“I always keep a spare pig’s trotter in my reticule,” she teased.

The girl’s eyebrows rose. “You do?”

Oh dear. She hadn’t recalled the penchant of the very young to take every utterance literally.

“Goodness no, I was jesting, my dear girl. I would shudder to think of what my reticule would smell like should I keep a spare pig’s trotter in it,” she explained, smiling gently at the child. She truly was a sweet girl, and her resemblance to her father was undeniable. “But I have a feeling we might lure Cat from beneath the settee just the same. Would you care to hear my plan? Before you listen, I must warn you, Pandy, that we have to keep it strictly secret in order that it shall work. Can you do that?”

Pandy glanced in her papa’s direction, looking uncertain. “May I keep a secret with Lottie, Duke?”

“We can tell Duke as well,” Lottie said, winking at Pandy. “It shall be a secret just between the three of us. One mustn’t keep secrets from an adult, after all. How does that sound?”

“Capital,” the girl declared, grinning as if Lottie had just announced her intention to give her a basket of sweets, the sole caveat being that she must eat them all at once.

“Duke?” Lottie asked politely, glancing at the unsmiling Brandon. “Have you any objections?”

“None,” he said grimly in a tone that suggested the opposite.

It occurred to Lottie—quite belatedly—that she was overstepping her bounds. But it was too late for such concerns now. Pandy was eyeing her expectantly, Cat was still cowering beneath the furniture, and Lottie had offered her plan as a solution.

She decided to ignore Brandon’s brooding intensity and settled her attention upon the girl instead, using a loud whisper. “Now then, you’ve said that the only way you’ve been able to lure Cat is with food, yes?”

Pandy nodded solemnly. “But I don’t got no food now.”

“ But I don’t have any food now . That is the proper way to say it, my dear,” she corrected gently. “However, Cat doesn’t know we haven’t any food, so what we shall do is use our imaginations.”

“Magimation?” Pandy’s eyebrows rose. “What’s a magimation?”

“Im-a-gin-a-tion,” she said, enunciating the word with slow, deliberate care. “It’s simple. We will pretend we have food in our hand, and Cat will think we have something for her to nibble on, and she’ll come out of her hiding place. When she does, Duke will scoop her into his arms.”

“Here now. I’ve not offered myself for such a service. The shabby little sack of fleas can go back to where she belongs, which decidedly isn’t under the settee in my emerald salon. Pandy, what were you thinking, bringing a mongrel into the house without my permission? Where have you been keeping the creature?”

Pandy sniffed, batting her long lashes against gleaming tears, her small countenance clearly on the verge of shattering. “But Duke, Cat ain’t a mongrel.”

“Of course she isn’t,” Lottie hastened to reassure the child, casting a disapproving frown in Brandon’s direction. “And every young girl must have a dog. Why, did you know that I had a faithful hound myself when I was about your age, my dear?”

“You did?”

Fond memories of her beloved pup Fancy brought a smile to Lottie’s lips. “I did indeed. And a cat as well.”

Pandy grinned, her tears forgotten. “Then you know all about how to rescue dogs ’n make them come without pig trotters, doesn’t you?”

“Of course I do,” she said with far more confidence than she truly possessed, for there was no telling how tame the dog was. “First, we must get down on our knees so that Cat can see we aren’t a tall threat looming over her.” Grasping silk, Lottie lowered herself to her stockinged knees on the Axminster. “Like so.”

With far less ladylike aplomb, Pandy dropped to her knees as well.

“And now, we must pretend as if we are eating something. The most delicious something we have ever eaten,” Lottie explained, holding her palm open and then using her other hand to pluck an imaginary delicacy out of it before holding it to her lips and pretending to eat.

To her amusement, Pandy mimicked her motions, pretending to stuff a bite of imaginary food into her mouth. “Oh, missus, this is the best something what I ever did eat.”

“Lady Grenfell, Pandy,” Brandon said, presiding over their imaginary feast with a forbidding air. “You must refer to the lady properly.”

“This is the best something what I ever did eat, Missus Lady Grenspell,” the child parroted brightly.

With a long-suffering sigh, Brandon raked his fingers through his hair, leaving it in disarray that Lottie was bemused to discover she longed to smooth into place. That simply wouldn’t do. The Duke of Brandon had already made himself clear. He wanted a wife. Lottie wanted a lover. No complications, no vows, no rules, no nonsense. Nothing but pleasure, her autonomy, her life to live as she saw fit.

With that reminder, she turned her attention back to the settee, where a wet black nose had made an appearance, followed by the swipe of a long pink tongue.

“It is working, Pandy,” she said quietly. “We must keep eating.”

They continued consuming their imaginary sweets, and Cat became a bit bolder, her stomach apparently getting the better of her instinct for self-preservation.

“Cup your hands together now, my dear,” she instructed softly. “Pretend as if you are guarding something delicious there, and hold your hands just out of Cat’s reach. When she comes nearer, slide slowly away until she has emerged enough that I can scoop her up.”

The girl did an excellent job of heeding Lottie’s advice, making a show of “eating” her imaginary food and offering it to Cat, whose nose poked farther out of the shadows beneath the settee. A few more moments of luring, and Cat emerged sufficiently that Lottie was able to swoop, gathering the surprisingly strong bundle of wriggling fur in her arms.

“Hush,” she told the dog, trying to calm her when she attempted to escape. A decided odor rose up from the spaniel’s long, matted fur. “I do believe Cat is in need of a bath.”

Brandon muttered something beneath his breath that sounded suspiciously like an oath. But he wasn’t the one holding the squirming, smelly dog and befouling his fine silk bodice, was he?

“Perhaps Duke will give her a bath,” she suggested slyly.

“Oh yes, will you, Duke?” Pandy asked, unaware of Brandon’s displeasure.

Brandon’s eyes narrowed on Lottie. “One of the footmen shall have the honor, I believe. Thank you for your assistance, Lady Grenfell. I’m sure you must be ready to go on with whatever amusements you’ve planned for this afternoon.”

The rotter.

He was essentially telling her to leave.

Well, two could play at this game.

Smiling sweetly, she rose to her feet and unceremoniously offered the stinky, writhing beast to Brandon. “Here you are, Your Grace.”

“Thank you,” he gritted, taking the dog in a reluctant hold.

Cat twisted about and licked his chin, then his mouth before settling upon his earlobe, the flash of sharp little teeth the only warning the dog was about to bite before Brandon emitted a startled yelp. Lottie couldn’t suppress a chortle, which only made him glare at her more.

“Good day to you both,” she said cheerily. “It was ever so lovely to meet you and Cat, Miss Pandy.”

“And you, Missus Lady Grenspell,” the girl said, attempting a curtsy and nearly tripping over her own feet. “I do hope I’ll see you again.”

That same, troubling shift happened in the vicinity of Lottie’s heart.

She swallowed against an unwanted rush of tenderness for the girl. “Perhaps we will one day, my dear.”

But as Lottie took her leave, she knew that, more than likely, she’d never see the charming little spitfire or her odiferous rescued dog “Cat” again. She wouldn’t allow herself to feel sad over it, however. She was perfectly happy with her life just as it was.

Brandon was soaked and irritated when he stalked into his library, shoes sloshing, hair plastered to his forehead, shirt and coat and trousers thoroughly sodden, and found his irreverent friend King awaiting him, glass of wine in hand.

King flicked an indolent glance over him and raised a brow. “Is this a new sort of excess of which I’m blissfully unaware? Bathing with one’s clothes on and then…carrying on with one’s day?”

“Ha bloody ha,” he growled. “Give me some wine, will you?”

As it had turned out, washing the furred demon his daughter had discovered in the gardens had required not just the determined ministrations of two of his burliest footmen, but his intervention as well. He’d only realized as much when the drenched beast had gone tearing up the staircase at breakneck speed, however, forcing Brandon to engage in a rather humiliating game of “chase-chase” which had led to him falling on his arse, knocking a picture off the wall, and ultimately resorting to having Pandy fetch a pig trotter from Mrs. Willoughby to lure the little devil from her hiding place under his own damned bed.

From there, he had decided that the monster was going to have a thorough cleaning by his own hand.

King obligingly poured him a glass of Chateau Margaux and offered it to him. “Here you are, old chap. You look as if you need it.”

“I do.” He took the glass and poured half its contents down his throat in one long gulp, heedless of the wine’s excellent notes.

King grinned, gesturing toward his dripping person. “Care to explain?”

“It’s a long and tiresome story.” He glowered over his wine. “Suffice it to say that it involves a mongrel and the maddening Lady Grenfell.”

“Ah, dear Lottie,” King said with barely disguised amusement and a note of self-assured familiarity that suddenly had Brandon’s shoulders tensing.

“The countess is a friend of yours?” he asked, striving to keep his tone mild as he took another bracing sip of wine, trying to ignore the drip-drip-drip from his trouser leg onto the carpet.

“We’ve been known to travel in the same set,” King said in a smooth tone, cleverly avoiding the question.

Brandon scowled. “That isn’t what I asked, and you know it.”

King raised his glass in mock salute. “A gentleman need not tell everything he knows.”

“Damn it, King,” he bit out, vexed beyond reason at the thought of his good friend enjoying an intimate friendship with Lady Grenfell.

Touching her.

Kissing her.

Bedding her.

It shouldn’t matter to Brandon. She had already refused him. He needed a wife to soothe his grandmother’s ruffled feathers. He most certainly didn’t need a red-haired Siren who distracted him with her lush mouth and her generous breasts and the stunning fit of her walking gown and…

Stop it, damn it , he ordered his recalcitrant mind. Cease this vein of thoughts at once.

King tapped at the dimple in his chin. “It seems to me as if you are asking something more than whether dear Lottie is my friend.”

He couldn’t say why, but the phrase dear Lottie boiled his blood.

He drained the remnants of his glass. “Did you fuck her?”

King chuckled, clearly enjoying himself, the perverse bastard. “My, how crude of you. The answer is not yet . But that isn’t to say that I don’t have designs upon her virtue.”

“She’s a widow,” Brandon snarled. “Virtue is for virgins and debutantes.”

“Yes, but it sounds so much better than saying I plan to shag her silly, doesn’t it?” King drawled.

Brandon found himself seriously considering his choice in friends. “Stay away from her.”

The words fled him, ill-advised and thoroughly witless.

Both of King’s eyebrows rose this time. “You plan to bed her yourself?”

“No,” he bit out the denial hastily. “I need a wife, not a mistress.”

And the lady had made it more than clear she only wanted to occupy the latter role rather than the former.

King choked on his wine. “A wife?”

It occurred to him that he had yet to share his unfortunate news with the other members of the Society. Pandora’s arrival had been a whirlwind, and suddenly, she had become the center of his universe.

He sighed. “Yes.”

“ You ?”

King’s tone was incredulous. Brandon couldn’t particularly blame his friend for his reaction.

“Me,” he confirmed with a dramatic shudder. “Perish the thought, I know. However, circumstances have recently changed.”

King stalked to the sideboard and poured the rest of the Chateau Margaux into his empty glass. “Is this somehow related to your sudden proclivity for bathing whilst fully clothed?”

He winced. “Indirectly, yes. It’s not terribly sporting of you to drink all my wine and not save even a drop for me.”

“You have the largest wine cellar of anyone I know,” King pointed out.

Brandon shrugged. “Yes, well. I don’t suppose you brought any of your particular potions along with you?”

Wishful thinking, he knew. Given the afternoon’s unexpected twists and turns, he would love nothing more than to erase his worries with one of King’s mysterious elixirs.

“I’m afraid it’s only the Chateau Margaux . Shall I ring for another bottle?”

Brandon crossed the chamber to the bellpull, his shoes making a squelching sound with each step. “I’ll ring for it.”

He yanked the cord, nettled with himself. Nettled with his friend. Nettled with his grandmother and with Lady Grenfell and with that blasted mutt who had invaded his town house.

King gave the air a pointed sniff. “Something smells like a wet dog in here, Brandon. Perhaps you ought to have your domestics give the rugs a thorough cleaning.”

Brandon lowered his head and tested the air, confirming his suspicion. “I’m afraid it’s me.”

“You?” King’s dark brows snapped together. “Never say you were bathing with a canine, old chap.”

“I was.” He paused, shaking his head as he realized how that sounded. “Rather, I was helping the footmen to bathe a runaway dog named Cat who smelled like a Whitechapel alley and who had hidden himself beneath my bed.”

Hell. He passed a hand along his jaw, realizing that sounded even madder aloud than it had in his head.

“I think you had best start at the beginning of this tale,” King said.

A servant arrived just then, and Brandon requested another bottle of Chateau Margaux from his impressive London stores. Once it had arrived, he wasted no time in pouring another glass and beginning to unburden himself.

They were two bottles in when he finished. “So, you see? I’ve no choice but to do my grandmother’s bidding if I wish to keep Wingfield Hall. The stubborn woman has promised me she will forfeit it to a distant country booby cousin if I don’t find a wife and soon.”

“I’m still having the devil’s own time believing you’re a father,” King said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“I’m yet growing accustomed to the notion myself,” he said wryly. “Pandy is an intrepid girl. I haven’t an inkling of what to do with a child her age. She terrifies me.”

His friend chuckled. “You must admit the irony—you, the man among us all who has been most vocal in disparaging marriage and children, now have a child and must also secure himself a wife.”

Grimacing, Brandon took a long sip of his wine. “I wish I could find the levity in the circumstances.”

“Is it absolutely necessary that you marry to secure Wingfield Hall?” King asked.

“Grandmother assures me that it is. And you know what we’ve built there with the Society. We cannot simply start anew somewhere else. The improvements we have made to the estate, the servants, the grotto…it’s all too perfect.”

“Can you not reason with your grandmother?”

“Reason and my grandmother do not belong in the same sentence,” he grumbled. “She is the most stubborn woman I know.”

Well, perhaps there was another woman he knew who was equally obstinate, but he wasn’t about to allow the Countess of Grenfell back into his thoughts yet again. He firmly banished her.

“So you truly believe that if you don’t marry, she’ll leave Wingfield Hall to this country cousin of yours,” King said, his tone contemplative.

“I have no doubt. You don’t know her as I do. The woman is as formidable as an army.”

“Blast.” King took another draught of his wine. “Quite the quandary you unexpectedly find yourself in, old chap.”

“I am aware.”

“You really ought to have changed into dry clothes,” King pointed out. “You’re still dripping onto the Axminster.”

He glanced down at his sodden trousers. “A bit late now, isn’t it?”

“There is also the matter of the unfortunate scent,” King said unkindly.

“Go to the devil,” he said without heat.

“You never did explain what Lottie has to do with all this, however,” his friend said.

Lottie. There it was again, the reminder that King was on far too friendly terms with her. And there she was again, invading his thoughts, taunting him when she was nowhere near and he shouldn’t be thinking about the way she kissed or how deliciously all her soft curves had melted against him.

“She paid a call earlier, looking for Sidmouth. After he had gone, Pandy and Cat the dog swept into the room and mayhem ensued.”

King chortled some more.

Brandon glared at his friend.

“Cat the dog,” King explained. “Surely you can admit that’s quite amusing.”

At least one of them was finding the humor in the sad state of his life. “Not as amusing as the thought of upending a bottle of my finest wine over your head.”

“I know you’d never waste it. To do so would be sacrilege, particularly with the phylloxera in France.” King was smug.

And correct.

Brandon sighed. “Lady Grenfell helpfully suggested that the dog needed to be bathed before she took her leave and handed her off to me. Of course, the little beggar did need a sound washing. She also bit my ear and licked my mouth. It took two of my most strapping footmen to wrestle her into a bath in the kitchens, but the mongrel is diabolical. She escaped and went on a tour of my town house that ended with spiriting herself beneath my bed and refusing to emerge until I offered her a pig trotter. I decided to take matters into my own hands and oversee the bath so that it could be completed without further escapes. When I emerged, I was wetter than the blasted dog, and Shilling informed me that I had a visitor. You, as it happens. Hence my present state.”

“Perhaps we should call for another bottle,” King observed.

“Not a terrible idea,” he admitted, returning to the bellpull and giving it a tug.

The glasses of wine had lessened the discomfort of sporting cold, sodden clothing. And with everything that had happened over the past few weeks, losing himself for a few moments with his old friend felt like an excellent way to spend the time until dinner.

“Now, then,” King said when additional bottles of Chateau Margaux had been requested, “tell me why your sainted grandmother has chosen now, of all times, to issue an ultimatum concerning your marriage.”

Brandon drained his glass. “Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that my illegitimate daughter was abandoned at her town house so that my former mistress could run away to America with her lover of the hour. Or the fact that when she arrived to give me a thorough tongue-lashing, an opera singer burst into the drawing room wearing nothing but my dressing gown.”

“Christ,” King muttered. “Discussions concerning the next meeting of the Wicked Dukes Society can wait. You’re fortunate indeed that I paid you a call, old chap.”

Brandon didn’t feel particularly fortunate as he settled in for another glass of Bordeaux in his now-damp clothes. But diverting his mind from tempting thoughts of Lady Grenfell was just the thing. He had no doubt that, as with so much of his misbegotten life, he’d regret it later.