The Courtesan's Wager

by Claudia Dain

  The best in life. A duke for a husband. Is that what Hawksworth meant?

  Of course it was. Brother and sister, they would see the world through the same eyes, value life on the same scale.

  “As would I,” Cranleigh said softly.

  “The best in life,” George Grey said mockingly. “What is that? You English.” And he shook his dark head in derision.

  “And you’re not English?” Cranleigh asked. “You are Sophia’s nephew.”

  “Our family history is a tangled one,” John Grey answered softly. “Sophia is my sister, our mother English, our father Mohawk. That is a true and clean answer. The deeper truth is not so clean.”

  “Is any family history clean and simple?” Cranleigh said. “I know of none.”

  “Then take your woman,” George said gruffly. “Make a tangled history with her.”

  “She is not my woman,” Cranleigh said, the words tearing out of his heart.

  “Then she will be Raithby’s woman,” George Grey said. “She will go, as women do, to the man who steps forward to fight for her.”

  Cranleigh stared at George, then at John, then at the two younger Iroquois sons. They stared into his eyes, measuring him.

  John said, his dark eyes glistening. “Would you lose your woman by not fighting? It is a hard thing, to lose a woman.”

  “If I fight for her, I will win her. But in that, I may lose her completely,” Cranleigh said, saying more to these savage men than he had to anyone in his life.

  “You speak like an Englishman,” George Grey scoffed.

  Likely true. He was an Englishman. But he was also a man.

  “Cranleigh,” Dalby said quietly, “what have you to lose?

  Amelia, once and for all. Amelia.

  It was then that Raithby smiled and Amelia laughed and something burst free inside him. Let her hate him. Let her curse him for robbing her of her duke. Raithby was no duke. If she could consider Raithby, then she could and would consider him. And take him.

  He meant to have her.

  Twenty-four

  LORD Raithby was very handsome and very amusing. Lord Penrith was very handsome and very compelling. Neither one, however, was Lord Cranleigh, who was handsome, compelling, and not one bit amusing. Lord Cranleigh was a stubborn sod who wouldn’t know if a woman was throwing herself at him if she wrapped herself around his neck.

  Which she might yet do if things grew truly desperate.

  Things were not quite truly desperate as yet because Cranleigh was in the room, watching her, smoldering in anger, and that was as good a beginning to a proper courtship as she could imagine. Having never seen a proper courtship her standards were perhaps a bit low.

  Of course, while flirting with Raithby and Penrith, who was more amused by her efforts than was flattering, she kept her eye upon Cranleigh. He did look furious. She was not encouraged. He often looked furious and did nothing about it. Nothing but kiss her, that is, when no one was looking.

  “You must put me on your list, Lady Amelia,” Penrith was saying. “I’m simply too young to endure being discarded so completely. My mother has no tolerance for such slights. She’s Italian, you know, and they have such strong opinions about marriage and suitability. She would rail for a month if I failed to meet your standard of perfection. It’s a heavy burden I bear, I assure you.”

  “You look to bear it very well, Lord Penrith. I shan’t pity you in the slightest,” she said, with a smile aimed precisely at annoying Cranleigh.

  At that instant, Cranleigh walked across the room like a wild animal, graceful and purposeful, his light blue eyes hard with intent. One could only hope amorous intent.

  “Lord Penrith, Lord Raithby,” he said in greeting. It was not a very pleasant greeting as he looked like he wanted to knife someone. She did hope it wasn’t her. “Lady Amelia,” he said in an undertone. A shiver went up her spine and down again. “This business of your having a list, it’s true that you have compiled one?”

  He looked furious and … something else, some expression she had never seen before. She tried to ignore it. Cranleigh and his various disapproving expressions had never hindered her before and they would not now.

  “Yes, it’s true,” she said, lifting her chin proudly. “I can’t believe you doubt its existence. Certainly these gentlemen don’t.”

  When Cranleigh stared at the gentlemen, his blue eyes gleaming with a dangerous light, they merely smiled weakly in response. She didn’t fault them in the least; Cranleigh was behaving very aggressively, which did bode so well for her.

  “Very well then,” Cranleigh said, stepping nearer to her and very nearly looming over her, “as there is a list, I insist on being first upon it. That won’t be a problem for you, will it, Amy?”

  Amy? He called her that here, now, in sight of Penrith and Raithby and … her father? Aldreth. Her heart leapt up and plummeted down. What would her father think of her? She had lived her life as an exemplary example of womanhood, the perfect daughter for a powerful, distant duke. He hadn’t seemed to notice. And so she had been more perfect. He hadn’t seemed to notice that either. The conclusion she’d finally reached at the advanced age of nine was that dukes and duchesses were free of the requirement of perfection, yet able to require it of others. Once she was a duchess, she could leave off trying to be perfect. All she had to do was to marry a duke and then her life could begin in truth.

  Yes, well, the initial problem with that plan was in finding a duke to marry her.

  And the second problem, which had arisen approximately a week after meeting Cranleigh, was that Cranleigh had, by repeated effort and seductive force, caused her to forget about dukes entirely.

  “I’m afraid you don’t fit the requirements, Lord Cranleigh,” she said politely. Then hissed under her breath, “And don’t call me Amy in front of Aldreth … and everyone else!”

  “I don’t fit the requirements?” he asked, taking a step nearer to her, which forced her to take a step back, nearly bumping into Yates with a tray of refreshments. “I think we both know I fit them perfectly. Top of the list, Amy, and tear the rest of it up.”

  “I most certainly will not! And I decide who qualifies, Lord Cranleigh, not you. It is my list!”

  “And you are quite done with it,” he said, taking her arm.

  She shook off his hand, which did not put her in the best light but she had such trouble remembering to be proper and perfect when Cranleigh was in the room. When he touched her, she couldn’t remember it at all.

  “I am quite done with you!” she snapped.

  “No, Amy,” he said, “you are not. You are not done with me and you never shall be. In fact, we have only just started.”

  Her mouth dropped open as she stared up into his eyes. Was he actually … was he actually ordering her about? In her father’s own house? Was that look in his eyes that she couldn’t identify lunacy? Had kissing her driven Cranleigh round the bend?

  Penrith and Raithby, she could only just discern as Cranleigh filled nearly every thought, obliterating nearly every other physical reality, drifted quietly away. Cowards. Did gentlemen leave a lady to face a tiger? For that’s what he was now, a tiger. Intent. Focused. Relentless. Dangerous.

  She shivered, a long shiver down her spine that burrowed into her womb and nested there, throbbing with life.

  Cranleigh, by a subtle shift of expression, seemed aware of her shiver and the throbbing.

  Blasted inconvenient, being in the same room with a man who read desire in her so readily. Two years of kissing had apparently provided him with a map. Topographical.

  Just thinking that, and staring into his eyes, and her nipples tightened painfully.

  “Come, Amy,” he said, taking her arm again.

  She yanked her arm free again, looking now around the room. They were being stared at, which was entirely predictable. She looked at Hawksworth. Hawksworth stared.

  She looked at Calbourne. Calbourne shook his head in mild disapproval.

&
nbsp; She looked at Edenham. Edenham winked.

  She looked at Aunt Mary. Aunt Mary was drinking Madeira, and rather sloppily, too.

  She looked at Aldreth. Aldreth simply returned her look, shifting his gaze to Cranleigh and then back again to her. Was he going to do nothing?

  Apparently so.

  She looked, finally, at Sophia. Sophia was speaking softly to Aldreth, saying perfectly horrid things, Amelia was certain. She never should have trusted Sophia Dalby. The woman was unscrupulous, devious, and cunning. And that was her list of attributes.

  The Indians, Sophia’s odd family, the Earl of Dalby included, were staring at her with an odd look of expectancy. She couldn’t fathom why. Was she supposed to do something? To allow Cranleigh to push her about and have his way with her?

  Her stomach dropped into her ankles at the thought.

  Ridiculous. Cranleigh having his way with her resulted in kisses that were as equally torrid as they were equally proper. He never actually touched her, did he? Entirely proper, if one only discounted his mouth, which was not terribly easy to do.

  “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you’re not going to do it to me,” she said.

  “Of course I am, Amy. To you and none other,” he said, and then, without another word, he lifted her in his arms and carried her out of the library. Without her shawl. Without a squeak of protest from anyone, Aldreth included, though she did seem to hear a woman’s muffled chuckle. Sophia, no doubt.

  He was touching her. He was fully and completely and, by all appearance, enthusiastically touching her. His arms held her effortlessly to his chest, his breath smooth and even against her cheek. Yates watched Cranleigh lift her like a parcel, blinked a bit more forcefully than was usual, but said nothing. He even closed the door to the library behind them, leaving them in the relative privacy of the vestibule. But Cranleigh did not stop in the vestibule. He continued right on, carrying her as if she were some sort of war prize into the small anteroom connected to the dining room.

  “You are not going to ruin me in a closet!” she said, twisting in his arms.

  There had been quite enough ruining going on in closets the past week or two; she saw no reason to add to that number. Besides, it was such an undignified way to get a man to the altar. She did think to have done better. As to that, didn’t Cranleigh have higher standards? As annoying as he was, she had thought better of him than that. To simply ruin her, and in a closet. Why, it was becoming very nearly a cliché.

  “Quite right,” he said. “The dining room table would be more comfortable.”

  “Cranleigh! I shall not allow you to ruin me!” she snapped, delighting in the way the light turned his eyes to icy blue.

  “Not in the closet or not in the dining room?” he said, setting her on her feet in the anteroom, pulling the neckline of her dress down before she could whisper a word of protest, and kissing her delicately on the back of her shoulder. His arm was wrapped around her waist, pulling her against his very obvious enthusiasm, while his mouth worked its way up to her ear, which he bit.

  “Not at all!” she said. “What were you thinking, to grab me up and carry me from the room that way. It was not at all proper.”

  “I was thinking that I was going to ravage you in the first empty room I could find. And how much I was going to enjoy it.”

  She pulled away from him.

  He pulled her back against him, grinding his enthusiasm against her hip.

  “Why, Cranleigh? Why?”

  “Because I want you, Amy, and when a man wants a woman, he takes her.”

  It was shameful; it was delicious; it had the most startling effect on her. She could scarcely breathe, was the truth of it. Worse, she didn’t actually want to breathe. She wanted only to melt into Cranleigh’s arms and never come up for air again.

  “But to be ruined, Cranleigh,” she protested, softly, but she did protest. It was an important detail and one she intended to insist Cranleigh remember. “I don’t want to be ruined.”

  “Don’t worry, Amy,” he said, lifting her hair to kiss the nape of her neck, “I can make you want it.”

  That didn’t sound at all respectable. She very nearly giggled.

  “Giggling?” he said. “Not at all what I want from you, Amy. You shall have to do better. Proper girls don’t giggle when they’re being ruined.”

  “I’m not being ruined, Cranleigh,” she said, holding very still so that he could kiss her neck a bit longer. “You’ve kissed me before. I was not ruined.”

  “More than kissing this time, Amy,” he said, lifting at her skirts with his hand, pulling her hard against him, nearly lifting her off her feet.

  More than kissing. How often she’d wanted more than kissing. She’d wanted touching and caressing, skin and heat. Man and woman. She’d wanted things from Cranleigh that she couldn’t even name, except to know that she wanted them from him.

  She pushed at his hand, pushing her skirts down. “I’m not going to be ruined! Everyone is getting ruined this Season.”

  “Quite right,” he said, holding her away from him, studying her as if she were an exhibit at the museum. “We must do it better, mustn’t we? Something to make them sit up and bark, shall we?”

  “What? That’s not at all what I meant, Cranleigh.”

  “I’m sure it must be precisely what you meant, Amy. I shall prove it to you, shall I?”

  And before she could draw breath to argue, which she surely would have done, he put her over his shoulder so that her hair quite tumbled down out of its pins and her derriere was quite alarmingly in his face, and carted her into the dining room, where he laid her on its gleaming wood surface and properly ravaged her.

  No, no, that couldn’t be right. A girl couldn’t possibly be properly ravaged.

  But it did feel lovely.

  He put his hands all over her and, having waited for the weight and heat and texture of his touch for a full two years, it was quite as remarkable an experience as she had hoped, indeed dreamed. Why, for the past year her dreams had been quite uncomfortable on the subject of Cranleigh and his hands, causing her to awake in the dead of night with the most violent throbbing. It was such a convenience that she slept alone.

  What would it be like to awaken at night, throbbing, with Cranleigh in the vicinity to tend to things?

  She trembled just thinking of it.

  “Enjoying this, are you? I thought as much,” he said, one hand in her hair and the other, the other, oh dear, the other quite where it had no business being. She could not possibly have been more delighted. It was quite obvious that Cranleigh could be pushed only so far and then pushed not a fraction more. “And what of this?” So saying, the cad, he trailed his fingers up her stocking until his hand met the bare skin of her thigh. “Your skin is like velvet, Amy. I could touch you for hours.”

  She certainly hoped he meant that.

  “Cranleigh, I do think you should stop,” she said, for she was certain it was expected of her to say something along those lines.

  “If you think that, I’m doing something wrong,” he said, and then he kissed her.

  That effectively killed all arguments she could have devised.

  She was tossed into a vortex of sensation centered and controlled by his hands and his mouth, his weight and his heat. He was a hot, hard man, who touched her with soft seduction and relentlessly pleasured her.

  Her skirts hiked up.

  Her resistance was trammeled.

  His kiss was gentle, thorough, leisurely. His hand the same. She was a meal, laid out for him and he ate of her softly, without haste and with great relish.

  She moaned into his mouth, a sound of submission and of joy.

  “Are you mine, Amy?” he breathed against her mouth. “Have I made it impossible for you to want any other man?”

  “Stop talking. Kiss me,” she commanded under her breath, pulling his head down to hers and biting his lower lip.

  He kissed her. He always did. Cranlei
gh, so reliable. So very reasonable of him.

  He nibbled her lips and his tongue danced against hers, his fingers played with the top of her stocking, touching skin briefly, skipping down to play with her garter, skimming up again to brush a fingertip against her trembling flesh.

  Her groin ached. Her hips thrust upward toward his hand as she moaned into his mouth.

  “Why did you wait so long for this?” she asked, panting out the words, clutching his hair, feeling the shape of his skull and the slick texture of his hair. “Why did you resist?”

  “Resist?” he said, sucking at her throat, his hand clasping her knee and forcing her leg outward until it pressed against the confines of her narrow skirt. Blasted skirt. “I could not resist you for an instant, Amy. The whole trouble, that.”

  Trouble?

  Was that a jest? Idiotic moment to be making jests.

  “Cranleigh, you know perfectly well that you have been completely obstinate about the whole thing,” she said, nudging his hand upward, past the insurmountable barrier that was apparently her garter.

  “The whole thing? The whole duke thing?” he said, removing his hand altogether, completely proving her point that he was obstinate.

  The whole duke thing? Didn’t he understand anything?

  Blast. It was beginning to look as if he might have lost the thread and wasn’t going to properly debauch her after all. And after two years of waiting, too! He really was nearly hopeless. Did she have to arrange everything?

  “Cranleigh, you are going to plead for my hand, are you not?” she said, trying not to sound petulant, but not entirely succeeding.

  “Before or after I ruin you, Amy?” he said, his hand moving up her thigh again.

  What a perfectly hideous thing to say, and while lying on top of her, too. Being brutish was one thing, she quite often enjoyed that, but there was no excuse for being common.

  Amelia jerked her head back on the table, her hands fisted in Cranleigh’s blond hair, her skirts jumbled past her knees, and said sharply, “Before, I should think. In fact, I’m entirely certain that I don’t wish to be ruined, Cranleigh. Kindly desist.”