Captivated by a Lady's Charm

by Christi Caldwell

  Curiosity all but spilled from the other woman’s eyes. “Emmaline,” she corrected. “And of course.” She made to rise, but Prudence, desperate to give her restless legs and hands a purpose, sprung from her seat, marched over to the door, then pulled it closed. The soft, definitive click served as the confirmation for the path she’d charted.

  Prudence stared at the wood panel a long moment, and then turned slowly back. The marchioness remained seated, with that patent, gentle look that marked her so very different than all the cold, unkind members of the peerage. It also served as the encouragement she needed. “You said Society has dictates they expect us to follow, but it is important to sometimes take control of your happiness.”

  The other woman stilled.

  “At your ball, while we were speaking,” she said on a rush, gesticulating wildly as she spoke, “you indicated that your future had been laid out before you and that you took control with the help of my brother.” At the other woman’s lengthy silence, Prudence’s courage flagged. Perhaps she’d made more of their exchange than there had been. “I am sorry,” she forced out past the tide of embarrassment. “I suspect I am not making much sense.” She paused to press her fingertips into her temples and rub, and then she took a deep breath, letting her arms fall back to her side. “I am a social outcast.” Emmaline opened her mouth, but Prudence would not allow her a word. “Oh, I know my circumstances,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I am gossiped about for decisions and actions that were not my own.”

  The woman did not seek to mollify her with false protestations. “It is not right, Prudence,” she said quietly, coming out of her chair.

  She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Whether it is right or wrong, it is the way of our world.” Prudence proceeded to tick off on her fingers. “I do not have a suitor. I have nary a dance partner.” Other than the one whom she now dreamed of with a staggering frequency. “I am stared at. Talked about.” She fixed her gaze on the floor-length, crystal windowpane. “And if I have to endure an entire Season of this, I’ll go mad.”

  The rustle of skirts and the creak of the floorboard indicated the other woman had stood and now moved toward her. “I have not shared your same experience,” she said softly, forcing Prudence’s attention up. “But I have known what it is like to have no suitors and to be gossiped about and stared at for reasons beyond your control. Do you know what the gossips would print about me in their scandal sheets?”

  Five years earlier, Prudence had been more focused on sending her governesses fleeing than in attending names of strangers in a gossip column. She shook her head.

  The marchioness’ lips pulled up in the right corner with a wry smile. “I was the gossiped about Lady Emmaline Fitzhugh, forever betrothed, never the bride.”

  “That is far better than never betrothed, never the bride,” she said under her breath. For the prospect of never knowing a hint of the love her brother knew with Juliet and Patrina knew with Weston, robbed her of sleep at night.

  “Is it?” Emmaline arched a brown eyebrow. “I had a betrothed, but what did I have? A gentleman who did not wish to wed me.”

  Which brought Prudence to the reason for her visit. “But you are happy now.” It wasn’t a question. All of the ton knew the Marquess and Marchioness of Drake were as in love now as they’d been four years ago. From beyond Emmaline’s shoulder, she stared out at the grey winter day. A faint white speck, followed by another and another danced past the window. Drawn to that hopeful sight, she continued past the marchioness and came to a stop at the windows. It was snowing.

  Prudence clasped her hands before her and directed her words at the streets below “You are happy because you took control of your own circumstances. With your husband and in your life.”

  The furrow of the marchioness’ brow was reflected in the window. She took a tentative step closer and then another before stopping. Her expressive eyes revealed the parade of thoughts spinning through the woman’s head—questions, confusion, and then a rapidly dawning of understanding. “There is a gentleman,” she said with the same surprised wonder of one who’d uncovered the secrets of the universe.

  Prudence bit the inside of her lower lip and slowly turned back. She gave a slow, hesitant nod. “There is a gentleman,” she said softly, breathing the words into existence before this woman she trusted to keep her secret.

  “Ah. I see.”

  Did she? Could she? Could she when Prudence herself did not fully understand? “I have met him but four occasions.” She turned her palms up. “He danced with me…”

  “Lord St. Cyr in my ballroom,” the marchioness murmured, putting together the pieces of the introduction she’d formulated.

  “Yes, Lord St. Cyr. But that was not the first of our meetings.”

  Surprise flared in the other woman’s eyes.

  Heat climbed up Prudence’s neck and suffused her cheeks. “We met by chance on Bond Street. He plucked me out of the way from a shopkeeper’s bucket of slop water.” And from that moment on to their every exchange since, he’d cast some kind of hold upon her senses, cemented by the magic of his kiss. A lone carriage rumbled past the window, drawing her attention downward.

  “And what would you have me do to help you?”

  There was no stern reproach or annoyance in the marchioness’ question, rather a desire to know what brought her here this day. In a world built on prevarications and polite pleasantries, Prudence admired the woman’s directness. She took a deep breath and turned about. “I want to take control of my happiness. I want to know how to…how to bring the marquess up to scratch.” Silence met her bold pronouncement.

  The quiet marched on so long, she turned back to see if the other woman had, in fact, left the room. Lady Emmaline remained stock-still, her eyes wide. “Oh, Prudence…”

  She well knew the significance of the request put to this woman who was more friend to her brother and stranger to her than anything else. Sensing the woman intended to issue the necessary protestations expected of any and every young lady, Prudence pressed on. “You indicated that you’d brought your betrothed ’round—”

  “Our families’ connections went back earlier than my birth,” the woman put in gently.

  In other words, what did Prudence truly know about Christian, the Marquess of St. Cyr? “You worry that I do not know him?” The other woman’s silence stood as her answer. “But what do any members of the ton truly know about a person. Their familial connections? The respectability of their name? And those connections are often forged and cemented after a short courtship.”

  It appeared the marchioness intended to be the voice of reason. She sailed over to her. “But what do you truly know of him? Do you know the kind of man he is? Do you know if he is honorable and good? Whether he will be faithful to you?”

  Prudence wrinkled her nose at that last question. In the scenario she’d carefully laid out that involved her wedding Christian, she’d not allowed herself to think he’d be anything but faithful to her. Yet if he was a rogue as purported by the papers and her brother, would he truly give himself fully to her, in every way that she required?

  The marchioness claimed Prudence’s hands. “You want love. I understand that, for I was you…but as you said, our circumstances are not the same and I would not wish to see you hurt.”

  She met the other woman’s gaze squarely. “He danced with me.” By the perplexity in the marchioness’ eyes, she did not or could not understand the very significant implications of those sets. “No other gentleman has wanted to brave the gossip or be bothered by dancing with a Tidemore lady, but he did. Not once, but twice.” Her tone grew increasingly passionate. “And when I spoke to him of the scandal—”

  Emmaline’s gasp cut in. “You spoke to him of—”

  “I did,” she said with an emphatic nod. “In the event he was unaware of my circumstances, I’d have him know who I truly am. When presented with those truths, do you know what he said?” She didn’t wait for the other woman t
o speak. “He said that it did not matter. He said a person should not be judged by the actions of another.” Her lips tingled in remembrance of his kiss. “That is the man I would marry,” she said quietly. Prudence brought her shoulders back and firmed her jaw. “You asked what brought me here and the truth is I would have you tell me and teach me how to bring the marquess up to scratch.”

  In a wholly un-marchioness-like manner, Emmaline slapped her hands over her face and groaned. “Your brother would throttle me for even entertaining it.”

  Prudence gave her a wide smile. “Oh, he would, of course, grouse and bluster, but you know Sin.”

  “Yes.” Emmaline nodded. “Yes, I do know him, which is why I know he’d never tolerate his sister pursuing a gentleman. A notorious rogue, no less.”

  Prudence held up a finger and waved it about. “Ah, yes. But he shan’t know.” Not allowing the marchioness to go over all the thousand and one reasons she herself had already identified in the wrongness in trying to gain the marquess’ affections, she said, “Furthermore, did Sin not help you with Lord Drake?” The other woman went stonily silent. By the long, slow sigh, capitulation was near. “Will you help me?”

  Emmaline hesitated. “The scandal of your pursuing the gentleman, should it be discovered, would be ruinous.” The marchioness’ warning rang familiar with the same reason Prudence herself had battled since she’d concocted her plans for Christian.

  “I will take care that no one discovers my intentions,” she pledged.

  Emmaline sighed again, rubbing her fingers over her forehead as if Prudence had given her a horrid megrim, which was an altogether distinct possibility. Her own mother had and continued to make that same accusation against all of her troublesome children. “Very well,” the marchioness said, letting her hand fall back to her side. “I shall help you.”

  Hope leapt in her breast. “You will?”

  “Even as it feels like a betrayal of Sin and a dreadful idea for too many reasons to count, I will help you. For I consider you more than an extension of your brother. I consider you a friend.”

  Emotion formed a ball in her throat and she forced words around it. “Thank you so much,” Prudence said quietly, aware of how wholly inadequate those words were for this woman who’d fashioned herself a friend to her lonely self. Oh, she had siblings who filled her home with laughter, but when one was out in Society, it had the same feeling of one being set adrift in the English Channel during a vicious storm.

  The other woman claimed her hands and guided her over to the ivory sofa Prudence had occupied earlier. “Shall we begin?”

  Since she’d concocted her scheme, she’d not truly allowed herself to entertain the possibility that the marchioness would truly aid in her efforts. A giddy sensation filled her chest. With a slow, widening smile Prudence sat, prepared for a lesson on how to bring a gentleman up to scratch.

  “Now,” Emmaline said. “First there comes the matter of knowing where that gentleman will be and being sure you are always there.”

  Her mind raced back to Christian’s rescue of Poppy.

  Hyde Park…

  Chapter 12

  Lesson Twelve

  Hyde Park can often serve as the ideal meeting place…

  Seated in the breakfast room, Christian scanned his copy of The Times, attending the useless details upon the sheet. Name after name of ladies he did not care about and gentlemen he could not stand. Yet, he should be attending, and he should be caring a great deal more for the names of those ladies and their circumstances. Instead, he who’d known the pleasure of some of the most skilled French courtesans and lush, eager widows found himself wholly captivated and transfixed on the memory of a waltz and a stolen kiss under the fragile moonlight.

  At the soft thread of footsteps outside the breakfast room, he glanced up.

  His mother, plump and wearing a perpetual smile stood framed in the entrance. He made to rise but she motioned him back to sitting. “Christian.”

  “Mother,” he greeted, and after snapping the newspaper closed, he set it aside. He removed his spectacles and set them atop the scandal sheet. He finished the remaining contents of his glass of coffee and then motioned a servant over to refill his glass with the black brew.

  For the whole of his life, the only thing Mother favored more than the breakfast meal was the evening one. This time, however, she bypassed the sideboard and rushed to claim the seat beside him. A servant hurriedly pulled out the chair and she settled her rotund frame into the mahogany, shell-backed piece.

  The four lines creasing her brow proved the only indication of her distress. She opened her mouth to speak and then her gaze quickly found the footmen. Immediately taking her cue, Christian dismissed the servants. They filed from the room in neat order and then pulled the door closed. His mother gave him a hopeful smile. “Have you found her?”

  His gut clenched. He lived, breathed, and slept two nightmares—the one of his past and the one of his family’s precarious present. One lady flashed to mind, but he quickly thrust aside the endearing visage of Lady Prudence Tidemore. “I have not,” he said, not bothering to feign confusion. He’d nothing to offer a dreamer and optimist such as her.

  Her smile dipped, but did not fade. “Oh, dear.” The greying Lady Villiers tapped her fingertip against her chin. “I’d so very much hoped that after last evening’s ball you would have a suitable lady to put your offer to.”

  Christian set his glass down and then leaned back in his chair. “I assure you, I know what is expected of me.”

  His mother ceased her distracted movement and patted his hand. “You always have done what is expected of you. You are a good boy.”

  He winced. Ever the proud mama, she’d always had a false sense of her son’s true worth. But then, perhaps that was being a parent: being blind to the failings of your children. “You needn’t worry about our circumstances. I will see to you and Lucinda.” He’d failed too many people in the past. This latest task should be the easiest of his obligations to see to in the scheme of the life he’d lived. And yet, in being forced to wed to save these two dependent upon him, he would be stripped of the little honor he’d thought himself in possession of.

  “I worry for you, too, Christian,” his mother said with an uncharacteristic solemnity.

  A dreamer and a hoper, she’d been the perfect wife for his father—even with their dire financial straits, his mother and late father had moved through life with a remarkable good cheer.

  Yet now she worried. The mantle of responsibility grew heavier upon his shoulders.

  “You needn’t worry after me. I’m no longer a boy.” No, he’d not be so foolish as to give his heart over to another woman’s hands. As such, he’d maintain careful control over his life and the security of those he was responsible for. He picked up the paper, flipping it open once more and scanned the names of debutantes and ladies mentioned.

  His mother laid a hand over his and he started. He looked around his paper. “I want you to wed a young woman who is deserving of you, Christian.”

  A swell of bitterness choked off his words. What a warped sense of her son’s actual worth.

  “I want you to know love the way your father and I did,” his mother pressed.

  Christian feigned his practiced grin. “I daresay that is asking for the earth and the sky,” he drawled. “Finding a wealthy young lady and love?” He may as well be chasing rainbows for the proverbial pot of gold mentioned in those tales his father loved to tell.

  His mother pursed her lips. “Humph.” She folded her arms, her frown deepening. “I have heard there is a certain lady who’s captured your notice.”

  He stared unblinkingly at his mother. “Have you?” He infused as much calm into those two words as possible.

  “Or mayhap you’re just doing the gentlemanly thing and helping those in need,” his mother continued and she uncrossed her arms so she might give him another pat on the hand. “You were always heroic in that manner.”

 
Guilt swirled in his belly. What would she say if she knew the true coward he’d been? His mother reached past him, cutting into his silent shame. “What are you—?”

  She rescued the newspaper and opened it. “I know it is in here, somewhere,” she muttered. “Must remember where I saw it.” She flipped page after page and then stopped. “Ah-ha! Here it is.” She turned the paper around and his stomach dipped.

  There in black, bold print was mention of a certain Marquess of St. C and the scandalous Lady PT. He should be focused on the erroneous conclusion drawn by the gossips. There had been no two dances or formal visits or exchanges known by anyone other than Maxwell. “It was just a waltz,” he said tiredly. One and a half, and on two separate occasions, if one wanted to be truly precise, which, in this instance, he did.

  A wide smile filled his mother’s fleshy cheeks. “A waltz and a half.” It appeared his mother also cared to be precise. She wrinkled her nose. “I daresay I’d rather you find a lady who is free of scandal, but if she makes you happy, and has the dowry to save you from ruin, then that is all I want for you.”

  “She is free of scandal,” he bit out in annoyance at his mother’s words of inadvertent judgment. “She—”

  At the expectant look in her brown eyes, he silently cursed. He’d already said too much. And… He glanced at the paper in his hands. And danced too much. Christian tossed it upon the table where it landed with a soft thump. “The gossips are looking closely at shadows upon a darkened wall,” he explained. “There is nothing there.” Beyond a woman whose bow-shaped lips he longed to explore.

  “There isn’t?” His mother sounded as dejected as the men who’d first discovered the world was not, in fact, flat.

  “No,” he said with a firm shake of his head.

  “There isn’t what?”

  They both glanced to the door where his sister stood framed in the entrance. He swallowed a groan. “Why are you awake?” In fact… “Why are you both awake?” Neither Mother nor Lucinda made it a habit of waking before the late morning sun.