by Christine Merrill/Marguerite Kaye/Annie Burrows/Barbara Monajem/Linda Skye
Ooh!
If only she could throw a vase against the wall, or kick a few chairs over, she was sure she would feel much better.
But as it was, there was a house full of guests to whom she had to be pleasant, and a sister whose happiness she would absolutely not dent by revealing one iota of her own turmoil.
And a certain handsome rake to consign to perdition.
If only he had not improved with age. Most men who led his kind of life ended up looking positively raddled. But that slightly dishevelled, degenerate look had only made him more attractive, not less.
“There you go my lady,” said Betsy. “All done.”
She glared at her reflection in the mirror, knowing she would not be feeling half so cross if she had just allowed him to have his way with her. Her pride might have got dented, but when, over the past six years, had it ever been completely whole?
“Is your hair not done to your satisfaction, my lady?” Betsy sounded anxious.
Lady Caroline forced a smile to her lips. “You have done wonders, as usual. I was thinking of something else entirely.”
With that smile fixed on her face, Lady Caroline left her room and went to join the others. At least everyone else appeared to be in good spirits. They were all gathering in the dining room, where a substantial meal had been laid out from one end of the long room to the other, on a succession of sturdy sideboards. From the way they were loading up their plates, one would think they were about to embark on a major expedition, rather than a walk round the grounds to gather the traditional greenery with which to decorate the hall.
She came to a halt just inside the doorway, feeling like a lump of hewn granite forever stuck in the middle of a stream, watching the jollity endlessly babble round while she stayed fixed in one place, unable to move on even if she wanted to.
Which she didn’t. It was more than she could do to make her feet carry her forward into that throng. How she wished she’d been as selfish as Lord Sinclair. If only she didn’t care about the effect her actions had on others she could have stayed in the dower house on the Fallowfield estate, shut the doors and barred the windows, and spent this season doing exactly as she pleased.
Kicking chairs over, smashing vases, and ruing the day she’d tried to appeal to Lord Sinclair’s better nature. For, otherwise, she would not have discovered he didn’t have one.
Because she was standing in the doorway, she heard someone pounding on the front door, saw the butler, Chapman, go scuttling down the hall, and knew the reason for the sudden blast of cold air that swirled into the house.
Though she could not believe her eyes when she saw the late, and very unexpected guest handing his hat and coat to the beaming butler.
Lord Sinclair.
While she stood frozen to the spot, Sebastian went bounding past her, grabbed his brother’s hand, and pumped it up and down.
“I did not think you were coming,” he said, with a delighted grin. “But it’s so good to see you. Come and meet my fiancée.”
Phoebe, who never strayed very far from Sebastian, materialized at Caroline’s side.
“I thought you said he was not coming,” she said indignantly. “I thought you said you could not change his mind.”
The petulant voice drifted to Lord Sinclair as his brother tugged him across the hall, making his hackles rise. Caro’s bravery in going to that tavern had impressed him even when he thought he still hated her, and this was the thanks she got?
But he gave no sign he’d heard that last remark as he bowed over Phoebe’s hand, and said all that was proper. Until he said, “You have your sister to thank for my presence here today. Although at the time I was not receptive to her arguments, after she left, and I had time to reflect, I began to see that she might have had a point.”
It had been the utter sincerity with which she’d given her version of the events that had driven them apart, which had done the trick. Up till that point, she’d been hiding behind a wall of pretence. Pretending she wasn’t afraid, pretending she didn’t care what he made her do. But when she’d told him they’d never stood a chance, she forgot everything but the unfairness of what had happened to them. For a fleeting moment he had glimpsed a pain to match his own before she closed the shutters again. But in that moment, his whole world turned upside down. Or was it the right way up? For even though he’d surely made her hate him, by the way he’d deliberately intimidated and humiliated her, he kept going back to what she’d said about this being the time of year for a new start. That no matter how low a man had sunk, Christmas was a time for redemption. Wasn’t it?
His heart pounded as she looked into his eyes.
Could she tell why he’d come? Did she feel it too? The wild hope that they might be able to erase the past, and start again?
But if so, why was she frowning like that?
What was he doing here? After all he’d said? And—her brow puckered—had he robbed somebody? She couldn’t think how else he had managed to get hold of such a stylish set of clothes. They all looked brand new. And so wellmade that she had a brief vision of him holding some terrified tailor at gunpoint until he’d been furnished with a set of garments fit to go visiting.
While she was still reeling at the sight of him looking so vastly improved, Phoebe was hugging him, and kissing him on the cheek and prattling away.
“Oh, we are so glad to see you. And looking so well. And dressed so well! Caro said you might not be able to afford to come, but you look as fine as fivepence.”
“Chapman informs me you drew up in a coach and four,” said Sebastian. “So were the rumours that you gambled away your entire fortune false? If so, I am heartily glad of it.”
“Rumours have a tendency to be inaccurate, Seb. Or perhaps,” he said with a darkling look at Caroline, “my luck at cards took a turn for the better, and I won back everything I thought I had lost, and a bit more besides.”
Lady Caroline swallowed. Was he trying to tell her something? She had never been very good at having conversations where people said one thing while meaning another.
“Well however it came about, I am glad of it,” said Sebastian staunchly, thumping him on the back for good measure.
“You must come in and partake of some refreshments,” said Phoebe.
“In a moment,” he said. “But first I would like to have a moment alone with Lady Caroline.”
Phoebe’s eyes widened. “Oh! Well, if you really must… ”
As she and Sebastian went back to circulate amongst their other guests, Lord Sinclair stepped round her so that his back was to the room. So nobody but her saw the way his face changed from congeniality to steely intent in the blink of an eye.
“You are dying to ask me why I have really come, aren’t you? I can see questions veritably bubbling up and pressing against the back of your sweet, seductive lips,” he drawled softly.
He thought her lips were seductive? All of a sudden they felt seductive. As though they’d been made for kissing.
Kissing him.
“Ask me,” he said.
So sternly she daren’t voice her hope he might have relented towards her.
“Is it… is it because of what I said about family? That they… they all love you, and miss you?”
He tipped his head to one side. “Partly. Yes, in part that was my motive for coming here. They, at least, have never done anything to warrant my hurting them, have they?”
Meaning that she had. But at least he was acknowledging that he had hurt them unfairly, and that he was sorry and was here to make amends.
Though he’d also said that was only part of the reason he had come. Her heart gave a girlish little skip.
“Ask me,” he insisted. “Ask me what you really want to know.”
She gathered her courage in both hands. “Is it because you understand, now? Is it because you have forgiven me?”
He shook his head, making her heart sink.
“It had not even occurred to me that you wanted my for
giveness. You were so very emphatic in denying you had done anything wrong,” he said grimly. “So I shall just have to tell you plainly what brought me here, in spite of my aversion to weddings.”
She’d given him hope, yes—but he was not a green boy any longer. He needed proof that the girl he’d fallen in love with was all he’d ever believed—that he hadn’t made her up out of his own fevered imaginings and longings. For all he knew, that glimpse of what he took to be pain might only have been the last desperate attempt of a cunning woman to rouse his pity, so she could escape unscathed from what was becoming an increasingly volatile situation. Had she been clever enough to say exactly what he most wanted to hear—that she’d sacrificed herself to save her family? Or was she really someone with whom he could rebuild his future? He knew what he wanted to believe, but that was just the trouble. He wanted to believe in her far too much.
The only way to be absolutely certain about her was to test her to the limits. Only then would he find out what she was really made of.
And he may as well start by letting her know the kind of man he was now.
“And my aversion to this kind of gluttony, in the name of religion,” he said, sweeping a scornful gaze round the room. “Back in London, people shiver and starve in the slums, while all this,” he gestured at the laden sideboards, “is provided for people who have no need of it.”
Her eyes widened. She had never suspected him of harbouring such radical zeal. But then, during the years since they’d parted he could well have experienced the hardships he’d just been speaking of for himself. The things he’d seen, and suffered, were bound to have changed him.
Well, the same could be said of her.
So when he gave her a hard smile, and said, “I have come, Lady Caroline, to collect my winnings,” she barely flinched.
“I paid promptly,” she retorted.
“Oh, no, you didn’t. You cheated me. And after promising, practically the moment you set foot in Molly’s room, that you would adhere to the exact wording of that wager.”
“I did not cheat!”
“You could not have been in that room for more than twenty minutes,” he said. “When we agreed upon one hour.”
“But you threw me out.”
“Only after you provoked me into losing my temper, by stripping in that provocative manner, leading me to suppose… all sorts of things. And then calling a halt.”
“You… I… ”
“You owe me another forty minutes, Caro,” he said silkily. “Whichever way you look at it.”
“What do you mean, whichever way you look at it?”
“Oh, come. I might have been the worse for drink when you played your tricks on me, but I was sober the next morning. You thought you could get away with just spending an hour in the room if you could get me confused enough. That was why you spent so long getting undressed. You hadn’t done it to deliberately play the whore. You were playing for time.”
“Y—yes… ”
She was so glad he’d finally realized she was not the kind of woman he’d accused her of being, that it was a moment before she realized her admission had not had the effect she’d hoped for.
“You admit it? Just like that?”
“Well, yes. I… ” She darted a look past him. People were watching their increasingly heated tête-à-tête with beady eyes. Since she had no wish to provide fuel for gossip, she lifted her chin, and gave him a dazzling smile.
“Get to the point, sir,” she said through gritted teeth.
“You owe me,” he replied with an equally forced smile, “forty minutes naked.”
“I cannot believe that you have come all the way here, just to humiliate me all over again,” she said. “Was that night at the Crossed Oars not enough?”
“Nobody forced you into anything,” he reminded her. “You walked into that tavern of your own free will, and you agreed to the terms of our wager. You swore you would meet them. Are you telling me now that you refuse to pay up?”
“Look,” she said in desperation. “You are here now. The breach with your family is healed. By the looks of you, your luck has changed. So surely, that stupid wager we made no longer matters.”
“The wager is all that matters,” he said fiercely. He could mend the breach with his family at any time. This was about them. And if she could still prattle on about the family, rather than seize the chance he was offering her…
Had he ever meant anything to her?
“If you intend to welch, then there is no point in me remaining.” He made as though to move past her, back to the hallway.
“Wait,” she cried, seizing his arm. “You cannot go now.”
“Oh, yes I can. I have wished my brother well. Kissed his bride-to-be. That is already far more than anyone expected from me.”
Oh, no. If he stormed off like this, after arguing with her in the doorway, everyone would think it was her fault. Everyone already knew, or thought they knew, that they had been as good as betrothed before Lord Fallowfield put in a higher bid. Everyone also knew that her marriage was the cause of his spectacular downfall. She’d lived with the blame all these years, but she was blowed if she was meekly going to let him tarnish her reputation all over again.
“What do you want me to do? Go back to that tavern and strip for you all over again?”
“No, don’t be so foolish. We would not be back in time for the wedding if we stuck to the terms of the wager that strictly.”
“What then?”
He gave a slow smile.
“I am prepared to be lenient. I will accept your nudity in whatever bedroom I have been given in this house, tonight. I shall even be generous enough not to remind you that you were actually naked for a scant ten minutes of the time you were with me before. Since it is Christmas, I will reduce the tally to just half an hour.”
“Oh, yes, very generous,” she snapped.
“As I have already altered the location where you will pay me, yes, I think I am being very generous.”
She’d taken a breath to call him a rude name when she recalled Phoebe’s guests, and shut her mouth with a snap.
“And do not try to cheat me again,” he said sternly. He was going to stay in charge of the situation this time. He would turn the tables on her, use the methods she’d employed on him to thoroughly confuse and disarm her. And he would not relent until he’d wrung the truth out of her. “I shall not start counting the minutes until you are naked.”
She gave him her most dazzling social smile. “I think I hate you,” she said, dropping him a curtsey.
He bowed. “Do you mean, by that statement, that you agree to my terms?”
“Yes, damn you,” she seethed. “You have given me no choice.”
He gave her a grave look. “There is always a choice, Caro. It is no use blaming others for the position in which you find yourself.”
So it was all her own fault, was it? She couldn’t possibly have been the victim of her father’s failings, or her husband’s cruelty, her sister’s demands, or his own need to see her humiliated. No, she had somehow brought it all on herself by making the wrong choices.
She turned on her heel and stalked away from him, although as the day progressed, it was hard to avoid him altogether.
He was one of the party that went out to gather greenery. He stayed to watch as the ladies fashioned the branches into swags and bunches, and he helped the footmen dispose them in various parts of the hall. He laughed and flirted with the younger females of the party as they fashioned kissing balls from the mistletoe. And applauded along with the others when the great Yule log was brought in, and set alight.
And every expression of enjoyment he showed only served to remind her what a cold-hearted beast he was. Tonight, she would have to make some excuse for not attending Midnight Mass so that she could go to his room and pay him what she owed.
Only this time, it would be ten times worse. Because she’d spent so many nights wishing she had not stopped him joining her o
n that bed.
And this time he was going to insist she lie there for a full half hour, naked.
What was she going to do if he made an attempt to touch her, this time? How would she be able to resist him?
Oh, how she hated him.
But how much more she hated herself, for still wanting him.
CHAPTER FOUR
SHE PUSHED OPEN the door to Lord Sinclair’s bedchamber without knocking, slid inside and shut it firmly behind her.
He was sitting in a wingback armchair before the fire, his legs stretched out in front of him, reminding her of the position he’d adopted to watch her strip in the Crossed Oars. Only tonight, he wasn’t fully dressed. He looked as though he’d started to prepare for bed, removing his jacket and waistcoat, then donned a dressing gown to take one last drink before the fire. A decanter sat on a cluttered table at his side. The only glass was the one he held in his hand, from which he was sipping.
“I approve of your attire,” he said as she discarded the shawl she’d wrapped round her shoulders before scurrying along the chilly moonlit corridors to the guest wing.
Pride had made her put on her best nightwear, a confection of silk and lace, held in place by a series of ribbons she could easily slip from their bows herself. She was not going to give him any chance to lay so much as one finger on her this time.
The trouble was, the silk of her gown had already slid over her limbs like a lover’s caress as she’d made her way through the deserted house to his room. It had roused her body to want things it had no business wanting. If only he didn’t hate and despise her, she would have been hurrying to this clandestine assignation eagerly.
Instead of which, the very fact that they were the only ones who had not gone to church increased her feelings of shame and resentment.
He beckoned to her.
Her heart, which was already pounding from her dash through the house, picked up speed still further. Knowing that if she hesitated, she might never pluck up courage to go through with it, she tugged the ribbon of her robe loose, and let it slide from her shoulders.