The Jealous Love of a Scoundrel (The Marlow Intrigues) by Jane Lark Read Free Book Online Page A

flicked the reins and set the horses on about Hyde Park, away from the ring where everyone gathered. He would make her happy. He would do all he could to please her. Give her anything she asked.
    “Harry was sweet to me last night when he saw you were not there, and Drew was being ridiculously kind. I did not even know he had such a capability for concern. He fussed over me half the night, fetching my drinks and my supper as Harry sat and kept me company.” His friends had probably been making assumptions about where Peter was. They would have been correct had Lillian’s brother not come to town to visit her.
    “Drew is a good man,” Peter answered. He had been as bad as Peter when they were young, but now Peter was alone in his debauchery. It was no wonder Drew could feel pride.
    “Mama asked me to invite you to dine with us tonight. Will you?”
    He sighed. He should. They had their engagement ball to plan for next week. But he’d left Lillian with a bleeding lip; he could not avoid her tonight, he had to see her this evening. “Tomorrow, Emily. If I may, there is something I should do this evening.” Take a contract to my mistress, whom I would like to set up in a house, with an income, so I might keep her exclusively as mine . This dual life was going to be hard. What excuses would he find to leave Emily for a night once they were wed?
    He flicked the reins. “I’ll take you back now. Your parents must be wondering where you are, we have been out so long.”
    Her fingers gripped his arm as he sped the horses up for a good run out of the park, before they hit the traffic on the streets.
     
    ~
     
    It was with a sense of humbleness that was uncommon to him, that he walked into the theatre, earlier than he had been before. The show had not even begun, although the town’s Corinthians and rogues were already gathering in their seats.
    The hallway leading to Lillian’s dressing room was full of semi-naked women, the chorus of dancing girls who went on first in their almost translucent, white muslin dresses. The whole show was a titillation to the male tastes—an aperitif to what was sold backstage after the performance upon it.
    He licked dry lips as the women glared at him with a wave of condemning stares. He supposed he had earned them for the bruise which must show on Lillian’s cheek today. Yet when he reached the end of the line of women waiting to go on stage when they had their cue, he was faced with another obstacle. Perkins stood before Lillian’s door, guarding it.
    The broad burly stage manager, who also played the role of guardian over the actresses, pressed a rejecting palm against Peter’s shoulder. “You are no longer welcome here, Lord Brooke.”
    “I need to speak with Lillian.”
    “She does not wish to speak to you, my Lord.”
    Damn. He needed to apologise and he needed to offer her the contract in his inside pocket. She had known he had not hit her deliberately. “If it is about last night it was a misunderstanding. Lillian knows it was.”
    “You cannot bruise a woman who has a job on a stage, my Lord.”
    Ah, so this was not in protection of Lillian then, he was protecting the theatre’s wares. “I’m sorry. It was an accident, as she knows, and I am sure she has told you. I did not intend to hurt her. I would not. I am not that sort of man.”
    “But even so.”
    Peter lost his temper, impatience scorching through him as jealousy had last night. “Even so, nothing! I wish to see her!” He pushed the man and Perkins stumbled back. Peter walked past him and Perkins must have been mildly assured of his innocence because he did not try to start a fight and stop Peter again.
    The handle turned in Peter’s hand and he opened the door. She was sitting before her dressing table applying her make-up. She looked up. The bruise on her cheek ran into her lip, and her lip was cut and swollen.
    He shut the door. “I’m sorry.”
    There were flowers in her room, but none of them were