Captivated by a Lady's Charm

by Christi Caldwell

  “The Bride of Lammermoor.” He righted her as she stomped on his toes.

  It was a good thing she was not the wagering sort. She’d have lost everything on that silent wager. The work of Sir Walter Scott is what this man read. Those tales of unrequited love and great strife? How unexpected of a man who’d disavowed anything and everything romantic.

  “You are surprised,” he observed with a wry grin.

  “I’d not taken you as one to read of romance,” she conceded. “Not a gentleman who has spoken so emotionlessly about love and hope.”

  He dipped his head closer so that their breath mingled. Oh, God. No man had a right to smell as he did. The faintest hint of chocolate and brandy filled her senses. She missed another step and this time her stumble had nothing to do with her dreadful lack of rhythmic timing. “And I would take you as one to see romance in Sir Walter Scott’s work.”

  Except, those words spoken in that faintly supercilious way, were not spoken as a compliment. She bristled, far preferring him charming and grinning to condescending. “Isn’t it a work of romance?” she shot back.

  “You have read it?” he asked with something akin to surprise, which only further rankled.

  “Are you surprised I read?” she turned his earlier charge on her.

  Christian stilled and then tossed his head back on a laugh. “Brava,” he said and her heart kicked up again with that bothersome tendency of racing too quickly at his quips and smiles. He ran his gaze over her face. “You are an Incomparable.” Those words were spoken, more to himself.

  “I am not,” she said matter-of-factly. “I wear white gowns and have the requisite hideous ringlets.” As though to highlight that particular point, an ever bothersome strand her maid could not tame tumbled over her eye. “Furthermore, Incomparables always have dance partners.”

  “But you have a dance partner, madam,” he pointed out. He swept thick, golden lashes downward, hooding his gaze, but not before she saw that earlier glint of desire she’d noted before. “You have me.”

  Oh, dear. Her lips parted. There, in the middle of the crowded ballroom, a small sliver of her heart slipped free and landed at his feet, forever his.

  The orchestra’s set drew to a close and Christian and Prudence stopped on the edge of the ballroom. Polite applause went up from the dancers as they then shuffled off the floor. She and the marquess remained, lingering a moment.

  “My lady,” he said quietly, bowing over her hand.

  I do not want this moment to ever end. “My lord.”

  “Prudence.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek as her blasted, overprotective brother’s furious tone cut into this magical moment between her and Christian. Prudence followed his gaze to the towering, furious figure just beyond her shoulder. Blast!

  “St. Cyr,” her brother greeted the other man with an icy grin that could have frozen the Thames.

  Christian stiffened, and then with a smile she’d come to learn in just a handful of days was his carefully crafted empty grin, he greeted Sin. “Lord Sinclair, a pleasure.” Then in a blatantly dismissive gesture that sent her brother’s eyebrows shooting to his hairline, he presented his shoulder to Sin. “Thank you for the honor of this dance, my lady. I bid you good night.”

  With that, he turned on his heel and marched off, leaving her the misery of only her brother, and Society’s cruel eyes for her company. She stared after him. His words whispered around her mind, as they’d been spoken in that husky, gruff tone which called to her. You have me… A little sigh escaped her.

  “You are woolgathering,” her brother bit out. “With Society staring on.”

  If only she did have him in all the ways that she’d dreamed of having an honorable, good gentleman. Another sigh slipped past her lips. “That would be splendid.”

  “Are you mad?” her brother’s whisper cut into her fanciful musings. “Or are you speaking in jest?”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to say that it really had been more a matter of her not attending him, but then wisely closed her mouth. As she moved alongside her brother, back toward where Juliet stood in waiting, tension poured off Sin’s taut frame. The strands of the orchestra’s quadrille filled the ballroom. He shot a deliberate gaze around the crowd and then he narrowed his eyes. He drew her to a stop beside a nearby pillar. “What is it?” she asked quietly when he did not speak.

  “You would make more of the gentleman’s intentions than are there. He is not honorable.” She tightened her mouth, prepared to flay her brother to ribbons for tearing down a man he did not know. “He is, as I said previously, a fortune hunter. And if there was any doubt of that particular point, his dancing this set with Lady Beatrice should be testament of that.”

  Incapable of feigning indifference, she swung her gaze out to the neat circles of dancers and found him in short order. Christian and the young woman, Lady Beatrice, cut a striking pair—both tall, golden, and regal in their bearing. And the sight of the woman’s hand twined with his ravaged her foolish heart.

  “Prudence,” Sin began.

  She withered him with a look. “Do you seek to break me down before Society? Or do you wish to wound me and have me speak of matters that really should not be discussed before the ton?”

  Shock contorted his face and she shoved aside the niggling of guilt. This angry, overprotective man who’d judge another and inadvertently wound her bore little trace of the brother she knew. Prudence tipped her chin up. “Your wife is calling and I have torn my hem.” It was a blatant lie. Well, the latter part was, anyway. He need but glance down at her perfectly intact hem to verify as much.

  “Prudence,” he began.

  Not permitting him a discussion that had no place before prying eyes, she turned on her heel and made her way through the ballroom. All the while she skirted the edge, studiously avoiding looking at him. And his partner.

  All gentlemen who attended polite ton functions danced with ladies. Why, he could hardly dance more than a set with her without that being interpreted for far more. And yet… She came to a stop beside a pillar at the end of the hall. She used the enormous, white structure to shield herself from Society’s focus and search about for Christian. Drat, it was as though he’d simply disappeared. She wrinkled her nose. Which was a good deal better than his dancing another one of those perfectly pretty and not at all scandalous ladies about his marble ballroom floor.

  It mattered not. It didn’t. Why, it was as she’d said to Sin—she’d shared nothing more than a waltz with the man. One dance did not constitute a thing. Anyway, not on the gentleman’s part. Then there had been a chance encounter, which had by no means been any coordinated meeting between them.

  You are a horrid liar, Prudence…and in this instance, she suspected her governess turned sister-in-law would forgive that overused portion of Prudence’s vernacular. She made to continue on when the whispers and giggles reached her ears. Again.

  “No one would dare wed her. A sister who eloped. A brother who wed the family’s servant.”

  Prudence tried to meld her frame into the massive Doric column. For the span of a heartbeat, she entertained the idea of popping out from behind it and correcting the ladies’ erroneous knowledge of the situation. Juliet had been a governess, which was more a respected member of the family than servant.

  “Why would any respectable gentleman wed into a family so scandalous?” another lady asked in response.

  Why, indeed, Prudence silently mouthed. They wouldn’t. They didn’t. At least, that is what it had evidenced since she’d arrived for her London Season more than three weeks ago. Nary a suitor. Nary a dancer. Well, that hadn’t been altogether true. There had been one polite gentleman. Braving the mocking discovery of those ladies, she stole a peek around the column and found Christian with his perfect partner who did not stumble and trod all over his feet.

  Odd, how that dance had come to mean so much to her.

  “…shameful to even think a respectable gentleman would wed
her. I also heard whisper of…”

  Prudence had little intention of finding out whatever else that miserable harpy had heard whisper of. She continued along the length of the room and then slipped down the corridor. As she moved through carpeted halls, her ears still rang with the strains of the orchestra and the din of too-loud conversations. Desperate to claim a moment of solitude, she moved briskly through Christian’s home. Deeper into the townhouse, past closed door after closed door, before reaching the double doors that led to the back portion of the townhouse. She paused.

  No scandals. No elopements or rushed marriages. You are to be… Prudence continued on. She slipped silently through Christian’s home. With the din of the ballroom faded and a loud hum of quiet blaring in her ears, she wandered at a more sedate pace through the marquess’ home.

  “Oh, hello. Are you stealing off to meet someone?”

  A startled gasp burst from her lips and she spun about. Her heart in her throat, she took in the person who’d discovered her not so furtive sneaking. Prudence’s mind went curiously blank.

  A young lady, near to Penelope’s age, stood in the middle of the hall. Her head tipped to the side, she eyed Prudence with curiosity teeming from her brown eyes. The soft gold shade of the lady’s hair and the familiar brown of her eyes marked her a relation of Christian’s.

  The girl took several steps closer, studying Prudence as though she were an exhibit on display at the Royal Museum. “You do not look to be one of those scandalous ladies.” She stopped and glanced curiously at her gown.

  The tightness in her chest at the earlier cruelties dissipated. “Oh, indeed not,” she said on a whisper. “If I were scandalous, I’d certainly be wearing a dress of—”

  They spoke in unison. “Red.”

  The two young women shared a smile. How very nice it was to have a person to speak with against all the ugly gossips.

  “Indeed.” Prudence gave an emphatic nod. “But it would not be a light pinkish-red.”

  “Or mauve,” the nameless lady said, skipping over.

  She gave a mock shudder. “Egads, never mauve. It would be the deep crimson that no debutante would ever be permitted to wear.”

  The girl stared at her a long moment and then a wide smile wreathed her lips. “I daresay I must know your name. I like you very much.” She wrinkled her nose. “You aren’t at all like the ladies my brother is purported to carry on with.”

  A sharp pain snaked through her being and she mustered another smile. “My name is Prudence.”

  “And I am Lucinda Villiers.” She stuck her fingers out.

  Christian’s sister. They both had sisters of like ages. Knowing that piece of him made him more…real in ways he’d not been before. For now, he was more than a rogue and a charming gentleman on the street—he was a man with a sibling and a mother.

  Lucinda’s smile dipped and she looked pointedly at Prudence’s gloved fingers.

  Prudence cleared her throat. “Forgive me, I was woolgathering.” She took her hand and shook it in greeting. The impropriety of being caught slipping off by the host’s sister raised distant warning bells. “I really shouldn’t be here.” Her mother would tie one of Sir Faithful’s leads about her if this was discovered.

  A mischievous glimmer lit the girl’s eyes. “Neither should I.” She gave a wink. “But how else is a lady supposed to learn anything if not searching about herself.”

  “Indeed!”

  “My brother is determined to—” Alas, just what Christian was determined to do went unfinished.

  Two low, deep masculine voices sounded down the hall.

  “Oh, bloody hell,” Lucinda whispered with a ferocity that raised heat to Prudence’s cheek. “My brother and Tristan.” She took Prudence’s fingers once more and pumped her hand. “Lovely meeting. Must be off.”

  With the speed that came from a troublesome sister, Lucinda sprinted down the hall in the opposite direction abandoning Prudence to her own devices.

  Christian and Lord Maxwell’s voices grew increasingly closer. Heart thundering in her ears, Prudence shoved the nearest door open and slipped inside the darkened parlor. She closed the wood panel behind her and leaned against the frame.

  The sound of footsteps penetrated the door and she held her breath, waiting for them to pass. Praying for them to pass.

  Bloody hell, indeed.

  Chapter 9

  Lesson Nine

  Be careful which keyholes you are caught listening at…

  “I daresay it’s in bad form to hide from one’s own festivities,” Maxwell drawled from the chair he occupied on the opposite side of Christian’s desk.

  To let his friend know precisely what he thought of his useless observation, he poured himself a snifter of brandy and held the glass up in salute. “Indeed.”

  His friend leaned over and retrieved the empty glass and crystal decanter and proceeded to pour himself a glass. “If I were in the sorry state you now find yourself, I would also be hiding away.”

  Christian cradled his snifter between his fingers and studied the amber contents. Redding had given him three months. It had since been two months and three days and yet, he could not bring himself ’round to that shameful, unenviable task of hunting some lady’s fortune. He tightened his hands reflexively upon his glass. Granted, there was little choice. The eighteen men and women employed here, and his sister and mother, all confirmed that.

  “How bad is it?” his friend’s quietly spoken question called his attention up.

  “Bad,” he replied instantly. He took another long swallow of brandy and welcomed the path it blazed down his throat.

  “How long?”

  He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Three weeks.” Three weeks and three days if one wished to be truly precise.

  “Bloody hell, St. Cyr,” Maxwell hissed.

  For the first time since he’d met Redding, a grin pulled at his lips. He could always rely upon his friend’s like reaction.

  “What of your investments?”

  Christian swirled the contents of his glass. Other than Redding, only Maxwell knew of his bold wager on steam power. Knew and approved of Christian’s gamble. “They are yielding a profit.” But it still was not enough.

  “You need to marry.” His friend spoke with the same resolute determination that he’d evinced in battle. Then, Maxwell had long been the honorable one of the pair, knowing what was expected of him and seeing to those responsibilities.

  He managed a tight nod. Christian braced for his friend’s amusement, but an uncharacteristic solemnity glinted in the other man’s eyes.

  “I understand your circumstances and I’m not impervious to them, even if that is how it may appear.” Maxwell opened his mouth and then stopped. He stole a glance about. When he spoke, his voice was the deathly quiet practiced by a man who’d perfected silence around the enemy. “You require a marchioness. As my sister,” he meant his eldest, Kristina, “is in the market for a husband—”

  “I am not wedding your sister,” he put in quietly.

  “I was not going to suggest you wed her. Not again,” he said, at the pointed look Christian gave him. “And not because of your misbegotten sense of self-worth or the very obvious fact that it wouldn’t be natural for a man named Christian to marry a woman named Kristina.”

  A laugh rumbled up from his chest and he gave his head a slow shake. God, even with the direness of his circumstances he could always rely upon the much-needed brevity from Maxwell. “I’ve no intention of wedding any of the young innocent misses your sister might call friends.” One innocent slip of a lady stole into his thoughts—an honest, scandal-ridden one.

  The other lord gave a droll grin. “Ah, at last you have that same determined look better reserved for the battlefield. You must have brought yourself ’round to your undesirable task.”

  Such words could only come from one who’d known him nearly two decades. “Indeed,” he muttered.

  Maxwell bowed his head. “I am of cours
e here to help as a loyal friend.” The earl gave him a deliberate frown. “Knowing you as I do, you’ve already settled on the criteria for your wife.”

  Title-hunting, merciless, grasping, mercenary. “I have.” Oh, the merciless world in which they lived. If it wasn’t the battlefield of war, it was the battlefield of the ballrooms.

  Maxwell set his drink down on the edge of his desk with a firm clink. “You deserve more in your wife than the cold, calculated lady you’d seek to tie yourself to.”

  He started at his friend’s unerring accuracy. “I did not mention my requirements.”

  His friend waggled his eyebrows. “You didn’t need to. I know you, St. Cyr, perhaps better than you know yourself. The crimes you think yourself guilty of, we are all guilty of the same. There is no need to go through life flagellating yourself with remorse for your imagined failings. What happened with her,” Ah God, that traitorous bitch. “And Blackthorne could have happened to any of us.”

  Ah, here it was after years of silence; Maxwell’s words, the closest they’d ever come of speaking to the truth. Only, it hadn’t happened to either of them. It had happened to Christian. A youth when he’d first met Lynette, he’d lusted for the dark-haired Belgian beauty and had put his pleasures before all else. Ultimately, Blackthorne had paid the price on the battlefield for his follies. Now, the last member of their trio had set himself up as a recluse, whispered about and spoken of as though he were a beast in hiding.

  “And what of Waterloo?” Humiliated shame turned in his belly. “The misplaced praise when you were the one so deserving, could that have happened to anyone?”

  A black frown marred the always amiable earl’s lips. He surged forward in his seat. “By God, do you think I cared about the pomp and praise?” Frustration darkened the other man’s tone. “During that bloody war, I only cared about survival. Yours, mine, and…” Blackthorne. Guilt slashed at Christian’s conscience once more. His friend narrowed his eyes. “You wear a cloak of guilt,” Maxwell slashed the air with his hand. “Toulouse, Waterloo. Blackthorne.” Ah, God, the dull blade of remorse twisted all the deeper. “How do you still not realize. I didn’t need the commendations. I didn’t want them. I was just so bloody glad to survive.”