by Anne Gracie
“Make it up to you? In what way, pray?” Prudence asked, darkly suspicious of his sudden injured-saint expression. “Compromised your character? I didn’t think such a thing would be possible.”
Gideon took her hand in his. “Not possible to compromise my character!” he exclaimed, deeply shocked. “How can you ask such a thing? First you paint me as a pudding-hearted suitor with a sad want of dash—which is appalling, for I am particularly known for my aversion to pudding and my eloquence in dash! Next you break my tailor’s heart by consigning his billets-doux to the fire and then you kill off my relatives willy-nilly and refuse to allow me to go into mourning—”
“They were bills, not billets-doux!” Prudence objected.
“To a tailor,” declared Gideon in an austere manner, “it is the same thing! Now, allow me to escort you in to supper, and over crab patties, partridge poults, and lemon tartlets, I shall give due consideration to the matter of compensation owed for the blackening of my good name.”
Prudence looked mulish.
“I thought you said we were to be friends,” he reminded her.
“Yes, but your view of how friends behave and mine seem to be chalk and cheese.”
“Then you must educate me on the matter, immediately, before I disgrace myself by lapsing into bad habits again. And while you offer me knowledge on the etiquette of friendship, I shall offer you crab patties, which are food for angels. Not cheese. Plebeian stuff, cheese. Quite unworthy of you.” He tucked her hand back into the crook of his arm and proceeded to steer her gently but firmly toward the supper room, explaining, “You shall nourish my mind while I feed your body.”
How did he do that? Prudence wondered as he swept her in to supper. He’d not only overcome her scruples about going in to supper with him, he’d made her laugh. And he’d also managed to make the innocent consumption of crab patties sound like some sort of seductive rite, and she had no doubt he could make it so!
She resolved to stick to bread and butter. And perhaps just one lemon tartlet.
Chapter Ten
“Thus I am not able to exist either with you or without you;
and I seem not to know my own wishes.”
OVID
IT WAS BARELY A WEEK SINCE CHARITY HAD ATTENDED HER FIRST society function, and already she was a success, thought Prudence proudly. Now, attending her first ball, her sister was a picture of grace and beauty, seeming to float effortlessly through the complicated figures of the dance. Only Prudence knew the significance of the faint frown marring the marble smoothness of Charity’s brow. At least the tip of her sister’s tongue wasn’t visible, as it was wont to be when Charity was concentrating hardest.
For the days leading up to the ball, all five sisters had run the dancing master ragged, practicing and practicing until they knew all the steps by heart. It would be mortally embarrassing if Charity or Prue made a misstep or forgot the movements of the dance. They were determined not to look like the ignorant country misses they were. They had even practiced the wicked waltz, though neither of them expected to perform it yet.
The dancing master might well have saved his shoe leather, thought Prudence with a wry smile. The Merridew girls might have performed their part in the dances with sufficient grace and skill to pass muster, but Prudence had danced several dances with veritable clodhoppers and now the flounce on her new ball dress was torn so badly that she needed to pin it up.
Charity seemed to gain confidence with every step. Prudence smiled, watching. Who would have thought that after spending a childhood where to dance or sing was to court a whipping from Grandpapa, her sister would prove to have so much natural grace? She appeared perfectly at home in a ballroom, as if, like the other girls here, she’d been preparing for it all her life. The dance drew to an end, and Charity’s partner led her from the floor. Several gentlemen came forward offering her sister refreshments. Charity seemed unfazed by the attention.
Observing her sister shyly responding to masculine gallantry, Prudence felt as though she would burst with pride. Her younger sister was a picture of beauty, confidence, and grace. It was a personal triumph over Grandpapa and all his meanness. Her sister was like a rose, who, having spent most of her life in a harsh and bitter environment, emerged into sunlight unfurling her delicate petals, untainted by the vicissitudes of the past. Prudence prayed that all her sisters would be as unscathed.
She was watching Charity so closely, she knew to the minute when the Duke of Dinstable walked into the room. Their eyes must have met, for in an instant, her sister changed from a shy young girl at her first-ever ball to a glowing creature who seemed lit from within.
Prudence blinked. She had never seen her sister thus. Charity was radiant.
She glanced from Charity to the duke and back again. It was amazing. Hope was right, after all. The duke gazed at Charity in much the same way as she was looking at him—as if entranced. There might well have been nobody else in the room, for all the two of them noticed.
Was that how it was, love at first sight? It had been that way with her mother and father. One look and he’d known, Papa used to say. Mama would laugh and say it took at her least three good, hard looks at Papa before she’d decided he was the one. And Papa would laugh and kiss Mama and call her his beautiful slow top. Slow top indeed, Mama would retort in playful indignation—she was simply being discerning! And she would give him a look, and Papa would look back and after a moment they would laugh and kiss again.
Prudence sighed. Even though she’d been a child, she had never forgotten those intense, magical looks. The look of two people in love.
Now her beautiful younger sister and a shy, neat duke were exchanging just such searing, magical looks. A lump formed in Prudence’s throat. It was exactly what she had dreamed of for her sisters: the love that Mama and Papa had known, the love that only Prudence could remember. The love that Prudence had once dreamed of for herself.
She watched the duke bow over her sister’s hand and the breathtaking smile her sister gave him and prayed that their magic, at least, was real. And enduring.
Prudence took a long swallow of ratafia. She’d feared so much that her anxiety to see them safe might influence Charity into agreeing to the first possible man who offered for her. But if appearances were to be believed, and the duke did offer for her, there would be no sacrifice.
The duke seemed a very decent man—what little she knew of him. Quiet, a little shy, yet with unmistakable dignity and the assurance of rank, he was looking at her gentle sister with the kind of tenderness that made Prudence feel like weeping. And her sister was looking right back at him.
For that look in her sister’s eyes, Prudence would tell a hundred more lies.
The duke was surely not a rake like his cousin; in fact, that newspaper report about him she’d read had suggested he’d come to London in search of a wife. Prudence closed her eyes and said a little prayer. When she opened them, he was leading Charity toward the terrace, escorting her as if she were some sort of fragile bloom in need of care and protection.
No, the duke was not a rake like his cousin, Lord Carradice, thank goodness. He was totally sincere.
So why did she feel so suddenly…bereft?
Recalling the torn flounce, Prudence made for the ladies’ withdrawing room. She drew a packet of pins from the new netting reticule that Grace had made her and began to repair the damage.
“Torn your flounce, Miss Merridew? Do you want me to pin it for you?” It was Mrs. Crowther, the woman she had met at the Ostwither soiree. Without waiting for Prudence to respond, Mrs. Crowther bent down and took the pins from Prudence’s hand. She was wearing red again tonight, a brilliant, low-cut silk gown that pooled around her as she knelt.
Prudence had little choice. She thanked Mrs. Crowther and stood quietly while the older woman pinned the flounce with quick, efficient movements.
“That should hold it,” Mrs. Crowther rose from the pool of crimson silk. Her dress molded around her sinuous
figure like a flame.
Prudence, in her gown of creamy satin with dainty green and white snowdrops embroidered around the hem, felt like a gawky schoolgirl by contrast.
“Thank you.” She put on her evening gloves again and made to leave.
“Not so fast, my innocent.” Mrs. Crowther placed a long-fingered hand on Prudence’s arm.
“I beg your pardon?” Prudence raised an eyebrow, hoping she looked haughty. She did not like Mrs. Crowther or her tone. She tried to move but found Mrs. Crowther was holding her fast. They were not alone in the room and Prudence did not want to make a scene.
“A quiet word of warning, from one woman to another.”
Not knowing quite what to say, Prudence merely arched her eyebrows again.
“I think the situation calls for a little more privacy.” Mrs. Crowther led Prudence into the adjoining sitting room, currently empty.
“What situation?” asked Prudence, feeling annoyed with herself for allowing this woman to waylay her. But in truth she did not know how to avoid it without being impolite.
“The situation with Lord Carradice. You have been seen with him on several occasions.”
“I do not see that it is any business—”
“Lord Carradice and I are friends. Intimate friends, you might say,” Mrs. Crowther purred, sliding her hands voluptuously over the silken folds of her gown.
Prudence stiffened. If she’d had the courage to make a small scene in the withdrawing room earlier, she would not be having to deal with this distasteful conversation.
“So I thought it only fair to warn you, my dear young lady: Men are such careless beasts. Of course he is only amusing himself with you but—”
“How do you know he is only amusing himself? He may not be,” interrupted Prudence, suddenly furious. She knew Lord Carradice was only amusing himself, but she was not going to allow this flame-wrapped harpy to say so. “Or if so, it may not be me who is his little amusement.” She allowed that to sink in and then added pointedly, “You are married, are you not?”
Mrs. Crowther laughed, a brittle yap of scorn. “Don’t tell me you think he is serious in his attentions to you! He couldn’t possibly be, my dear!”
Her tone was woman-of-the-world to simple schoolgirl and while Prudence privately agreed with the sentiments, Mrs. Crowther’s sophisticated dismissal flicked Prudence on the raw. She raised her eyebrows and said in a calm, interested voice, “Why not?”
Mrs. Crowther smiled and preened herself. “If you had any knowledge of dearest Gideon at all, my dear child, any truly intimate knowledge of his history, you wouldn’t have to ask that.”
The woman oozed smugness. Prudence couldn’t bear it. She said in her silkiest tone, “Perhaps you have misread the situation, Mrs. Crowther.” As if bored by the conversation, Prudence frowned critically at her gloves, held them out, and smoothed them back to her elbows.
Mrs. Crowther watched with narrowed eyes. Prudence fussed with her gloves until she thought the other woman would burst with impatience and then added, “Are you sure these gloves are not crooked? There is something in their fit I don’t quite—”
“The gloves are irrelevant!” snapped Mrs. Crowther.
Prudence gave her a thoughtful look, then shook her head. “Oh, I don’t agree. An elegant pair of gloves quite sets off a ball gown…or ruins the effect. Now, what were we discussing? Oh yes. Have you considered that dearest Gideon, as you call him, could be an old family friend?”
She adjusted the gloves again and added casually, “I don’t suppose it occurred to you that our mothers might have been bosom friends as girls…And if that were the case, would there be any surprise in him keeping a friendly eye on my sisters and me for their sake?” It was not precisely a lie, Prudence told herself. More a statement of possibilities.
It wiped the smile off Mrs. Crowther’s face. “You knew his mother? So you must know about what happened. The old scandal.”
Prudence had no idea what the woman was referring to but decided not to compound her deception any further. She raised a disdainful eyebrow. Even without masculine thicketry, eyebrows were useful things, she decided; people read so much into them.
Mrs. Crowther frowned and said half to herself, “It would explain why Dinstable is squiring your sisters around, too, for if your mother had known Lady Carradice she would have known the duchess also. So you must know about that business…” She straightened and added briskly, “In which case, you must also know that Gideon will never marry, and why. And since he has never shown any interest in”—she glanced at Prudence disparagingly—“debutantes, you would be foolish indeed to nourish any expectations.”
“Expectations? Of Lord Carradice?” Prudence laughed incredulously as she opened the door. “Good heavens! What an odd notion! Set your mind at rest, Mrs. Crowther, I have no expectations concerning Lord Carradice at all!” It was the truth, after all. She sailed from the room.
“Miss Merridew!” Lord Carradice stood in the hallway.
She wondered how much he had overheard.
“Sir Oswald and your sister have been wondering where you were,” he said stiffly. “You must be more careful of the company you keep at such affairs, Miss Merridew. Mrs. Crowther, you will excuse us?” He bowed.
Mrs. Crowther let out a peal of laughter. “Oh, it is too, too amusing: Rake Carradice, playing the role of duenna. I vow, nobody would believe me if I told them! I see you spoke the truth, Miss Merridew—your mothers would be proud!” To Prudence’s intense irritation, she trailed long, white fingers familiarly along Lord Carradice’s arm as she passed him. And he did nothing to prevent her!
“What the devil was that all about? Why are you talking to that woman?” Lord Carradice took her arm as if he owned it and drew her farther along the hall and into a small, private room. He shut the door firmly behind them.
Prudence glared at him. He seemed to know where every small, private room in the building was. He was such a rake! And yet he had the audacity to criticize her behavior!
Holding his gaze in a silent challenge, she began to strip off her long white satin gloves. Let him reprimand her! If he dared. She loosened the tip of each finger with a small, angry tug, one by one. His eyes were fixed on hers, but she could tell by the slight flaring of his nostrils that he was aware of each movement, disapproving, no doubt. The combination of his intent observation and his silence inflamed her temper further.
She drew each long, elegant glove down her arm, baring the skin in a long, slow sweep, then tucked the gloves through a loop in her reticule. She was ready to do battle.
“What business of yours is it who I decide to talk to? You are not, despite what Mrs. Crowther said, my duenna!”
Gideon felt his temper flare. He’d been unaccountably worried about Prudence’s absence, fretting lest one of the rakes who’d attended the ball had lured her aside and was taking advantage of her. He’d gone in search of her, on the terrace, in the garden, and through numerous small rooms and hidden alcoves, his anxiety mounting all the time.
And then he’d found her with Therese Crowther, and the sight of his former mistress in conversation with Prudence had caused a reaction in him he didn’t quite care to examine. And it was not helped by the damned seductive way she’d removed her gloves. He felt defensive yet aroused. It was not a felicitous combination.
The duenna taunt had cut; still, he found himself saying, “She is not fit company for you!” He sounded ridiculously prissy. His frustration increased a notch.
“Not fit company? Then why did you introduce us the other night?”
He had no answer to that. “It was an error of judgment.”
“I thought she was a friend of yours. An intimate friend, she said.”
Gideon gritted his teeth. “Yes…no…not anymore. Hang it all, Prudence, I didn’t come here to argue with you! You are an innocent. Just take it from me that Mrs. Crowther and her like are not fit companions for—Where are you going?”
Eyes sna
pping with temper, Prudence tried to storm past him. He blocked her exit with his body.
She pushed at his chest crossly. “I’m leaving. Since Mrs. Crowther and her friends are not suitable company for me, what does that make you, Lord Carradice? As her intimate friend! Even less suitable! And so—” She shoved at him with small, determined fists. “I’m leaving. Or trying to!”
Gideon stared down at her, taken aback by her words. She was right. He’d known instant discomfort the other night when she’d met, even briefly, with the set of people he called his friends. Only they weren’t really friends at all, merely companions in boredom. And vice.
She railed at him, “I don’t need protecting. I’m not at all the innocent you imagine me. And you have no right to decide who I may or may not talk to.”
Gideon rolled his eyes. “Compared with that crowd, any decent woman is an innocent.”
His words inflamed Prudence’s ire. How dare he compare her with his glamorous mistress and then call Prudence a decent woman! He might as well call her dull and drab! In her girlish gown with the demure snowdrops!
She wished she had a scarlet silk gown. Then she would show him!
On second thought, she didn’t; scarlet would clash horribly with her hair. And no doubt on her, that tissue-thin silk would cling in all the wrong places. Life was so unfair!
But she would show him anyway! Without hesitation she reached up, pulled his head down to her level, and kissed him soundly on the mouth. It was a clumsy kiss and in her haste she’d landed a little off center, so she did it again, remembering how he had kissed her the last time. This time she found her target, dead on.
She kissed him openmouthed and felt the familiar, delicious shivers pass through her as he responded. She thought of scarlet dresses and kissed him in the most wanton way she could imagine.
Remembering what he had done with his tongue, she reached inside his mouth and stroked deeply and rhythmically. He tasted of wine and heat and Gideon. Their tongues tangled. He moaned deep in his throat and tried to take control of the kiss, but she wouldn’t let him.