The Passionate Prude

by Elizabeth Thornton

  She looked at him for a long, considering moment. “Armand,” she began hesitantly, “is this what your life is to be? Actresses and gaming and so on? What about the future? What will you do when your luck runs out? Don’t you have an ounce of ambition?”

  “Don’t start that again, Dee.” His tone was discouraging, and she lost the will to fight him. She stifled a sigh and after a thoughtful pause managed a smile.

  “Why don’t you come home to see us more often? Nurse misses you, you know. You always were her favorite. A few weeks’ quiet rustication in the country wouldn’t do you any harm.”

  Armand flashed her a wicked grin. “You’ll have to do better than that, Dee! You can’t come running up to town and box my ears, figuratively speaking, whenever I am a bad boy. Those days are gone forever!”

  “Who says I can’t?” Deirdre asked, an affectionate smile curving her lips.

  Armand retrieved a cheroot from a porcelain box on the marble mantlepiece and lit it with a taper from the banked fire. He inhaled deeply, and turned to watch his sister with wary eyes.

  At length he asked, “Why are you here, Dee? You’ve always had an aversion to town life since your first Season, so what brings you to town now?”

  Deirdre resumed her place on the sofa and indicated by a motion of the hand that she wished her brother to be seated. When she saw that she had his attention, she began.

  “Armand, I have decided that it is time I was wed.”

  “About time! And with your looks that shouldn’t be too difficult. Then you can put an end to this excessive meddling in my affairs and set yourself to managing the poor sap who thinks to make himself your lord and master.”

  Deirdre disregarded this uncivil speech with a temperateness of long practice. “But Armand,” she said coaxingly, “that’s just it. How can I possibly snare a husband when my younger brother sets the ton on its ear? What eligible man in his right mind would wish to ally himself with a family as disreputable as ours? Why, any gentleman with a modicum of breeding must deplore the antics of my scapegrace brother!” She turned a limpid gaze on him. “Armand, don’t you see how much harm your mode of living may inflict on me at this crucial time? You could ruin my chances of ever finding a suitable parti and I will be constrained to remain single for the rest of my life.” She shot him a quick, keen look from under her thick lashes to see the effect of her words. Armand’s thin nostrils flared.

  “I say, Dee! You can’t really mean it!” he blustered. “Don’t lay your lack of beaux at my door! As I recall, you were the one who turned down a score of offers any ordinary girl would be delighted to receive. It’s your opinion of men that’s kept you single, not my conduct! Who was it,” he went on in an aggrieved tone, “who took your part against Mama at the end of your first Season when she wanted you to marry that Sir Adrian fellow? I remember your words! You said that all the eligible men you’d met were self-opinionated stuffed shirts who wanted women to be pretty, empty-headed dolls and you wanted none of it!”

  “Did I say that?” Deirdre asked, smiling.

  “You know you did! So why this change of heart?”

  Deirdre considered. “Tempus fugit?” she asked wistfully. “Time, my dear boy, makes cowards of us all. I haven’t much changed my opinion of men, but it came to me gradually that for a lady who has set her heart on mothering her own babes, it would be convenient, if not essential, if she should secure some suitable male and lead him to the altar preferably before embarking on a family. I’m conventional, you see.”

  “Really?” Armand asked doubtfully.

  “Really!” said Deirdre firmly. “And the task, I hope, may not be beyond my capabilities.”

  “No, why should it? Even although you are my own sister, I own that you are a handsome filly, though a trifle managing for my taste. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble.”

  “Thank you. That is very generous of you,” replied Deirdre, smothering a smile. “I wish I had your confidence, but you must remember that I am now four and twenty, past my first bloom. My dowry is almost negligible. I can scarcely hope for suitors to be lined up at the door.” She shot him a deprecating smile. “You must not feel sorry for me, Armand. To be frank, I am almost reconciled to my single state. Should I fail in this endeavor, I shall take to wearing lace caps and declare to the world that I am a confirmed spinster. Perhaps my destiny is to be merely a maiden aunt. Of course, that has its compensations,” she went on musingly. “When you settle down and set up your own establishment, naturally I shall make my home with you, mayhap keep house for you until such time as you find a suitable bride. I own to a few qualms about such an arrangement, being sensible of the fact that two women managing a household does not often lend itself to a tranquil…”

  “Enough!” Armand barked out, aghast at the picture her words evoked in his mind. “What do you want from me?”

  Deirdre smiled. “I knew that I could count on you,” she said with a smugness which brought a foreboding glint to Armand’s dark eyes. “And really, I have no wish to inconvenience you more than necessary.”

  “Oh, haven’t you,” he retorted with a touch of ill humor. “Just tell me what you wish me to do, in plain terms, if you please.”

  “Escort me to parties and so on?”

  “Consider it done!”

  “Gaming in those dreadful hellholes?”

  “I’ll confine myself to the regular clubs in the interim. Go on!”

  “Naturally, your dueling must be curtailed.”

  “As you wish. Is that everything?” he asked with heavy sarcasm.

  “And Mrs. Dewinters?” she intoned hopefully, coming at last to the very heart of the matter.

  “What about Mrs. Dewinters?” Armand’s tone was ominous and his eyes blazed a warning.

  “Couldn’t you give her up for the Season? Is that too much to ask?”

  He sprang to his feet and glared down at her. “You don’t know what you ask! You know nothing of such things, Dee! How should you? You have led a sheltered existence. Girls like you are totally ignorant of…well, never mind. I can’t explain it to you. Suffice it to say that in this instance your understanding is limited, as it should be, and your meddling most inappropriate!”

  This masculine condescension, coming as it did from a younger brother, was too much for Deirdre. Her temper flared to a white hot heat and all caution was thrown to the winds. “There’s nothing wrong with my understanding,” she snapped at him, “and from my observation, Rathbourne is no simpleton, either! If she prefers you, then why hasn’t she given him his marching orders? I’ll tell you why! Because he has the title and fortune and the ‘lady’—I use the word loosely—knows which side her bread is buttered on! Furthermore,” Deirdre went on, her voice rising in her ire, “I take exception to your arrogant assumption that I am a green girl still wet behind the ears. How dare you insult my intelligence by fobbing me off with such drivel! It may surprise you to know, my boy,” she went on cuttingly, “that this big sister of yours knows a thing or two about the wicked ways of the world. D’you think just because I am gently bred, I haven’t heard of the antics of those aging harridans, Ladies Besborough, Holland, Hertford, Jersey, and so on? Don’t be a simpleton! D’you think we females are blind? Don’t you suppose we know who Harriette Wilson is even although propriety forbids us to acknowledge her? Or that the lineup of the foremost peers of the realm at her opera box somehow becomes invisible to us? We see more than you men give us credit for!

  “The truth of the matter is you must needs set yourself up as a lady’s man, thinking in your youthful innocence that it somehow marks you out as a man of the world. Grow up, Armand! A man of Rathbourne’s kidney can carry it off. He is a bona fide roué. But a boy aspiring to the follies of a libertine merely makes himself a laughingstock!”

  Having delivered herself to this blasting diatribe, Deirdre caught her breath and waited for Armand’s predictable invective to lash her. To her astonishment, he merely chuckled.

&
nbsp; “You don’t care much for him, do you?” he asked in an amused tone.

  “Who?”

  “Rathbourne, of course!”

  “Oh him,” she replied dismissively. “I assure you, I’m quite indifferent to the man. It is what he stands for that I abhor, and I have no wish to see my little brother emulate his scandalous example.”

  Armand grinned. “Haven’t you? Well let me set your mind at rest, Dee. I have no wish to set myself up as another Rathbourne. I haven’t yet sunk to that level! Give me some credit!”

  “Well then, why won’t you cut your connection with Mrs. Dewinters?” she pleaded.

  Armand’s brows knit together. “Dee, I warn you, this is one subject which we may not discuss! I mean it!”

  “But if she prefers him to you?”

  “Him!” Armand said with venom. “She is afraid of him! I have tried to persuade her to leave his protection to no avail. He seems to have some kind of hold over her, but he’s only flesh and blood after all. I could deal with him if I had a mind to.”

  Deirdre gave him a quelling look. “I see!” she said stiffly. “And you will call him out in the interests of Mrs. Dewinters, a woman you have known for, how long is it, a month? But for the sister who has always had your best interests at heart, you will do nothing if it inconveniences you!”

  “Dee, that’s not fair! I didn’t say I would call him out. Only that I cannot, will not give up Mrs. Dewinters. If he sees fit to call me out, then, as a gentleman, I have no choice.”

  She rose to her feet and looked beseechingly into his eyes. “And is that your last word, Armand? You will not do this for me?”

  “Dee, understand,” he said, grasping her hand, “I shall do all that you desire, within reason. But I cannot be held responsible for Rathbourne’s actions.”

  She left him then, knowing that further argument would not sway him. She had won some concessions, but she was far from satisfied, for what did it matter who called out whom? A duel with Rathbourne was something that must be avoided at all costs. Other men might be depended upon to spare a young, inexperienced hothead little more than a schoolboy for all his posturing, but Rathbourne was unpredictable, and she was unwilling to trust to his generosity in anything which touched her happiness.

  It suddenly occurred to her that Armand, by his foolhardiness, was putting into the Earl’s hands the perfect opportunity to punish her, and the thought made her go clammy with cold. Once, she would have dismissed such a notion out of hand, but Rathbourne had become an enigma to her. Armand was right. A man did not earn the title “Le Sauvage” because of chivalry on the field of battle. She must find a way to shield him from the Earl’s wrath. She must.

  Chapter Four

  Deirdre picked up her abigail at the front door and made her way north along Bond Street, the unsatisfactory interview with Armand robbing the morning of its pleasure. It was past ten o’clock, and the street was fast filling up with roving peddlers and flower vendors touting their wares from push carts or stout trays suspended by straps from their necks. Their cries of encouragement to the early bird pedestrians mingled with the rumble of the first horses and carriages rattling through the narrow, cobbled street. Tardy shopkeepers were hastening to unlock the doors to their treasure houses, and young lads in leather aprons were divesting the shop fronts of their iron grilles and hailing each other across the street with good-humored jests. Deirdre was deaf and blind to what was going on around her and missed the admiring glances which were thrown in her direction. Her mind was distracted by the problems presented by her brother and the interview which had just passed.

  When it had come to her that the woman Armand had become enamored of was Rathbourne’s mistress, the initial sense of shock had been followed by a tide of emotion—what was it, hatred? anger? pique?—so intense that it was only the greatest presence of mind which prevented her from giving vent to her fury. That Rathbourne’s reprehensible conduct could be of any interest to her, she would have hotly denied, but her habitual poise had developed a crack, and Deirdre was shaken by it. Surely her outrage had been occasioned by nothing more than a natural antipathy to the indiscretions of a lecher and the follies of an inexperienced boy?

  “How do you know him?” Armand had demanded, and she had cast her mind back fleetingly to her first and only Season, when she was a green girl and believed in the absurdities of chivalry and honor and all the nonsense which inexperienced young girls are apt to cherish before life turns them into cynics.

  She had told Armand the truth when she said that she had met him at some party. But she did not disclose that the details were indelibly imprinted on her mind. She had been presented to him at the come-out ball of her friend, Serena Bateman, and had been instantly bowled over by the glamour of his casual good looks which any young girl would be hard pressed to resist. His brilliant amber eyes had flickered over her indifferently, dismissing her as another pretty chit unworthy of a second glance, and Deirdre’s implacable dislike had taken root.

  She never gave him a second thought until she wandered by chance later in the evening into the card room and was unwillingly pressed by her hostess to make up a table at picquet. When she saw that she was to play against Rathbourne, she almost took to her heels, but one glance at the bored set of his shoulders and his cynical expression and her spine stiffened. She determined to humble the pride of the man who thought her little more than a cypher.

  For the first few hands, she deliberately played with the intensity of a novice and, when she won the first rubber, feigned such surprise and delight that she knew he put it down to beginner’s luck, as she meant him to. She caught the exasperated glint in his bored eyes and she choked back a gurgle of laughter, pretending to be overcome by a spasm of coughing. When it was her turn to deal, however, she flexed her nimble fingers and sliced and cut the cards with the dexterity of a cardsharp. She heard his snort of disbelief and her bland glance lifted innocently to meet his suspicious gaze. Having nailed her colors to the mast, she feigned a disinterested ennui, and yawned behind the shelter of her fan, throwing out her cards without a second look. She trounced him, of course, and she silently blessed the Reverend Standing for his unworldy pursuit of the knowledge of games of chance and the many hours she had spent in his company mastering the art.

  When she finally rose to excuse herself, she could not suppress the little gloating smile which played around the corners of her lips. Rathbourne’s amber eyes glittered up at her, and the boredom, she noted with a stab of satisfaction, had left their expression entirely, to be replaced by a new respect.

  She pivoted on her heel to leave, but his hand fastened around her wrist with crushing force, holding her captive.

  “The winnings, Miss Fenton, go to the victor,” he said in a lazy drawl.

  So he had remembered her name! That surprised her. But she set it aside as of little consequence. She smiled archly and firmly withdrew her hand from his grasp.

  “I don’t play for money,” she told him pertly, “only to defeat my opponents.” And she put as much innuendo into her words as she could command.

  In the weeks that followed, she had become aware of his veiled glances, those brilliant amber eyes following her when she was partnered in the dance or at supper, or in her aunt’s box at the opera. His animal magnetism was almost impossible to resist. But Deirdre had resisted, warned by the other debs of his notorious reputation with women. He was a rakehell, so they said, holding nothing sacred but his own fleeting desires. But it was acknowledged, regretfully, that young ladies of quality had little to fear from the hellion Earl since he generally avoided their company like the plague and took his pleasures with those ladies of the demimonde who might bestow their favors more widely and liberally and with enviable impunity. And since it was common knowledge that he had decided on a whim to join Wellesley in Spain, he was permitted to run tame in the most fastidious drawing rooms. Besides, there was always the faint hope that his eye might be caught by some lucky girl who aspi
red to a coronet and the fortune to go with it, and such a well-bred specimen would know how to turn a blind eye to what every wife must endure.

  Deirdre was at first dismayed and then repelled, and she soon developed a healthy contempt for him. She despised him as a hardened rake, and whenever she found herself captured by his bold amber gaze, her vivid green eyes would go icy with dislike and her lip would curl in open disdain, warning him off. But her obvious disgust only brought that sardonic smile to his face, and his mocking bow, she knew, was meant as an insult.

  In the few weeks she had known him, he had scarcely spoken to her, but with those speaking eyes, she decided, the devil lord had no need of a tongue. And then he had appeared at her elbow at the Jerseys’ ball at Osterley Park in Richmond, and had requested the pleasure of her company at supper. She had been so surprised that she had given her consent before she had time to consider.

  When he led her through the Ionic columns of the grand portico to the dining marquee set out on the east lawn beside the man-made lake, she was aware of the envious glances of the other debs, and it somehow made her more determined in her dislike of him. She had been polite but distant, enduring his pretty compliments in stony silence, her smile as false as his flattering words.