A sputtering snore cut into the thick, potent spell she’d woven and Christian drew back. He caught Prudence against him and held her close to his chest. Their breaths came hard and fast in a matched rhythm that could only be calmed by finding the ultimate fulfillment in one another’s arms. He placed his lips against her temple.
“W-was this merely a ploy?” There was a pained hesitancy to her unsteady question.
And he stilled. For all the ways in which he was a worthless bastard, he respected her too much to use her body’s desires against her. He kissed her once more and then drew back. “Do you think I’m capable of such treachery?” Regret twisted inside him. Since he’d first waltzed her across Lady Drake’s ballroom, he’d not wanted her blind to the man he truly was. Seeing that jaded cynicism there, directed at him and his honest intentions just now, ravaged him, leaving him exposed and weak before her.
She hesitated and color slapped her cheeks. He braced for an unnecessary apology. One that a man such as he didn’t deserve. Except, she continued to surprise him. “Are you aware of the details of my sister’s scandal?”
He would not lie to her. “I am aware of a failed elopement and nothing more.”
Nor had he cared to know even that detail. As a man who valued the secrets of his past, he’d not care to know or share in those held by anyone else.
Prudence dropped her gaze to the latch upon his cloak and gave a slight nod. “She believed herself in love with a gentleman,” she said quietly. “To a man who proved himself to be no true gentleman.” Her mouth tightened with a harsh anger that took him aback so that he wanted to hunt the bloody bounder who, through his vile actions against her sister, had left her cynical in this slight way. “They eloped, but it was really just a plan to ruin my sister and hurt my brother, and as such,” she pressed her palms together and stared at the interlocked digits. “We were all ruined.”
“We?” he prodded, hungering for each shred of herself she would provide that told him of who she was and all that mattered to her.
“My sisters Poppy and Penelope, and myself,” she said by way of explanation.
“Ah, yes.” Poppy, the girl close in age to his sister. There was another.
“I have three sisters. Two unwed, and Patrina, who eloped, and then some months later found herself married to the Marquess of Beaufort. They said she never would. My mother and all of Society that is,” she said rambling in a manner he struggled to keep up with. “But she did. And she is blessedly happy. In love.”
Those two whimsical words gave him pause, hinting at the danger in being here and speaking to the romantic Prudence who believed in love and goodness.
Seeming filled with her own inner tumult, she stepped past him and began to pace. “Most courtships are not born of love,” she spoke quietly, more to herself. A soft smile played about her lips. “Nor was Patrina and Weston’s first meetings fueled by love. But then with each meeting, the more they came to know one another, the more they cared, and then eventually,” she stopped abruptly and squarely held his gaze. “They fell in love.”
The warning bells clanged louder and louder in his ears and he, who’d entered into this exchange with complete and utter control, now eyed the path behind him as a means of escape. “And this letter pertains to your meeting with Maxwell, how?” His voice emerged garbled.
“I want to know what Patrina and Weston know. And Sin and Juliet.”
He tugged at the collar of his cloak, choked by the garment. Or was it terror over the words she spoke that restricted all ability to breathe? After Lynette’s betrayal, he’d disavowed that sentiment called love. His faulty judgment where that emotion was concerned had shaken his ability to trust his own heart. Now, this bold, fearless lady would speak of a dream for that very thing.
Prudence set her small, narrow shoulders, proudly. “However, I gave up on the hope of someone overlooking that scandal to see me.”
Those words, jaded and wounded all at the same time, drew him back from his own disquiet. He ran his palm along her cheek. “You are too young to give up on hope.”
“I thought you did not believe in that sentiment,” she said softly, leaning into his caress.
He paused. For he didn’t. Life had proven nothing ever truly came from hope. No matter how much a man wished for something, fought for it, or longed for it, be it surviving a bloody battle, or knowing peace and happiness, it was all ultimately futile. If it wasn’t the lead musket ball lodged in a person’s heart, it was the creditors and debt collectors, which ultimately proved the futility in hoping for more.
“You may say that you don’t believe,” Prudence, in a like manner, ran her gloved palm over his cheek. “But your prolonged silence indicates you must.”
Ah Christ, he’d never known the power of a woman’s innocent touch such as her gentle caress could feel like this. Even Lynette’s caress had been the practiced touch of a skilled courtesan that was nothing compared with his hungering for this slip of a woman before him. Desire to take Prudence in his arms and continue his earlier exploration of her trim, delicately curved frame slammed into him with the force of a too-fast moving carriage.
“I want to marry you.”
Christian blinked several times. “I…” He opened his mouth to speak and then promptly closed it. He tried again. “Did you…?” No words were forthcoming. For it had sounded as though she had said—
“I want to marry you,” she said with a gentle smile.
Yes, it would seem there was nothing faulty with his hearing.
Prudence retrieved the letter and thrust it toward him. He accepted the paper in his numb fingers. “That is why I asked Lord Maxwell to meet me.”
He’d never been accused of being a lackwit. In fact, he’d earned respectable marks at Eton and Oxford and had been often applauded by his tutors and instructors for his wit and yet, by God, he could no sooner make sense of the lady’s words than he could stop the Earth from spinning and set it into motion in the opposite direction. As such, to regain some control of the confounding situation, he employed the same droll, careless, roguish responses he’d affected through the years. “You intended to ask Lord Maxwell for my hand in marriage?”
“Well, not ask him for your hand,” Prudence said gesticulating wildly. “But rather for his help in securing your hand.”
And just like that, she’d kicked the world to spinning in the opposite direction. “You wish to marry me.” Surely he’d heard her wrong.
She nodded.
“You sought to enlist my friend’s assistance in securing my hand.”
Another nod. “Indeed.” He backed away from her and the prey now became the predator. She stalked toward him, wearing that wide, unfettered smile that stole into his waking and sleeping thoughts. Then she came to a stop. “You see, I put a good deal of thought into our circumstances and realized there is no other course except for marriage.” Her smile slipped and a slight frown hovered on her lips as though she’d tasted a too-bitter piece of fruit. “That is, marriage between us.”
Perhaps he was merely dreaming the entire exchange. Christian ran his hands over his face, wrinkling the paper. When he opened his eyes, the lady remained fixed to the floor staring expectantly back at him, expecting an answer. Nothing. He had not a blasted word.
“Do you have nothing to say?”
By the wounded edge to those six words, he needed to proceed with caution where the lady was concerned. “I am honored?”
Her eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “Is that a question?”
As it had been phrased, yes, it rather had been. “I am honored,” he said again.
She gave a slow, succinct nod, as though she far approved of his words this time. Prudence resumed her pacing. “I daresay it is unconventional for me to offer for you.”
His lips twitched and he gave silent thanks she was so focused on telling her plan she failed to see that hint of amusement.
“But you would never be brought up to scratch after my broth
er’s meeting with you.” Prudence paused and stole a glance at him. “He did meet with you, did he not?”
At the mention of the highhanded, insolent bastard who’d visited his table and issued no uncertain warnings about his sister, Christian folded the note and placed it back inside the front of his cloak.
Prudence planted her hands on her hips and leaned toward him. “Well?” At his continued silence, she tossed her hands up. “I will never understand you gentlemen,” she exclaimed. “You speak of honor and respect each other’s confidences, and yet the moment I put an innocuous question to you about my highhanded brother,” so they agreed on that score, “you cannot answer me?”
“Very well. We met.”
“And is that why you’ve not come ’round Hyde Park.” Hurt bled from her eyes and the realness of it knotted his stomach.
She’d gone to Hyde Park to meet him. He’d suspected she would and, as such, had avoided her. Running his gaze over the delicate planes of her heart-shaped face, he knew she deserved the truth, and despite her wish to marry him, she deserved more than him as well. “That is among the reasons,” he said quietly.
Prudence recoiled as though he’d struck her. “Oh.” That faint, barely-there utterance carried to his ears. But he was as much a coward now as he’d always been for he could not give her the total truth about his failings that had cost so many, so much and were what prevented him from stealing the good she represented. “I had thought…” She dipped her gaze to the floor. “I had thought—”
There was no place in asking for the remainder of those unfinished words. And yet, he needed to know. Brushing his knuckles over her jaw, he guided her gaze up to his. “What did you think?”
“I thought this meeting would go altogether differently. First, it was to be Lord Maxwell, and I would enlist his help and he would, of course, after hearing all the reasons enumerated, understand why we make an excellent match.”
Why we make an excellent match… A great shift occurred deep inside his chest. For with those words, Prudence paired them together in a way that made the dream of them real. A dream he’d not fully allowed himself and a dream he desperately wanted to cling to. She’d breathed hope and life back into his cynical world. The reality of his circumstances, past and present, however, made anything between them impossible. “I have nothing to offer you,” he said, unable to squelch the regret in his tone.
Her gaze shot up to his, as though she’d heard it and grabbed on to it. “I don’t believe that,” she said softly. “The things I want, the things I need, are not material.”
So she knew he was a worthless fortune hunter. Shame burned his neck. But in her purity and goodness, she would dance around the totality of those words. “I am a fortune hunter,” he said in clipped tones. “That is what I am, Prudence. Penniless. In dun territory. I inherited a marquisate that was as worthless as the mere baronetcy I held prior.” A lady of her courage, resolve, and convictions deserved far more than that—deserved more than him.
She frowned. At the sharpness of his tone or at the truth of his circumstances? “But you aren’t really a fortune hunter,” she said with such matter-of-factness he paused. “If you truly were one, you’d have ruined me and had off with my fortune. You are merely a gentleman in the market for a wife,” she clarified. “And isn’t that what we all are? Lords and ladies seeking to make the match that best suits our goals and hope—er…aspirations?”
How neatly she’d explain away his vile efforts this Season. He folded his arms at his chest. “Are you seeking a lord with a lofty title and fortune?” Only, he knew enough of her to know with her spirit and abandon she craved far more from life than that.
She never hesitated before replying. “I am seeking a gentleman who will not expect me to be an empty-headed arm piece. I want a gentleman who will allow me to freely speak my mind and who celebrates my oddities.”
His lips twitched. “You are not odd, Prudence. You are an individual.”
A softness fell over her face and she held his stare. “I am seeking a gentleman who I could love.” Could love. There should be a swell of relief that the lady didn’t sing those false words Lynette had once so effortlessly breathed into his ear. So, how to account for this slight sting of disappointment?
“I am not that gentleman,” he said quietly. He’d resolved to never be that gentleman again.
“You could be.”
Who owned those words? In the befuddled haze she’d cast, he could no longer sort out what was required of him from what he secretly longed for. The muscles of his stomach clenched. He fought through the heady pull for the promise she dangled before him. He’d been that same starry-eyed dreamer of love until life and Lynette had proven the falsity in that empty emotion.
Christian dropped his arms to his side. “And that is how we are different. My motives are not so pure. You see, you believe in love and dream of a match built on that emotion, and I want nothing to do with any such sentiment. I need a fortune,” he said with a bluntness that raised color in her cheeks. “I want nothing more than that.” For the reality was nothing existed beyond the stability and security his staff and family needed.
He braced for the wounded hurt in her innocent gaze. Instead, annoyance sparkled in her blue eyes. “I did not present an offer to you thinking it would be one of love.” She pursed her mouth in such a way that she plumped her lips. The full, crimson flesh momentarily distracted him away from any thoughts but ones that involved his mouth again covering hers. Prudence jabbed her finger into his chest, immediately squelching his desirous musings. “I am not illogical. I do not want to spend year after year enduring these horrid London Seasons. A match between us would prove advantageous. You would have your fortune. I would have my freedom to sketch and read and dance.” Prudence lifted her shoulders in a little shrug. Of all the things she might desire, she wished—to dance. “And I would have the freedom to simply be me without a man who’d demand I change.”
An unholy bloodlust momentarily blinded him to kill the man who’d ever demand she be anything other than “Prudence”.
For one sliver of a moment, the tempting lure of her words drew him. She presented a solution to his circumstances and sought something he could actually, in return, provide her. And yet, he’d have to be the veriest bastard to ignore the words she’d first spoken of. That sentiment called love that she not so secretly hoped for. Christian palmed her cheek once more. “I cannot wed you.” She stiffened and made to pull away from him, but he matched her movements, blocking all hint of retreat. “For the truth is, you spoke of love and that is not something I can ever give you—”
“But—”
He captured that protestation with his thumb, silencing her words. “You deserve more than me and I think, in time, you would realize as much.”
She held his gaze square on. “Perhaps you should allow me to decide what I deserve and do not deserve.” God help him, when she spoke in that husky contralto, commanding and entreating all at the same time, he wanted to take the gift she offered and have just a taste of the goodness he’d long ago given up on knowing.
And because he’d always been a man to take what he wanted regardless of right or wrong, he took her lips under his in a swift kiss.
With that, he turned on his heel and left.
Chapter 18
Lesson Eighteen
Gentlemen are obstinate creatures…
Seated at the back table of Guilty Pleasures, Christian sipped from his brandy.
“You said no.”
For the tenth time since Maxwell had asked that very question, he nodded. The bemused earl didn’t seem to gather that no matter how many times he posed the inquiry, and in however many variations of words, the answer was inevitably the same. He’d turned down Lady Prudence’s practical and, if he were being totally truthful with at least himself, enticing offer. “I said no,” he said, taking a sip of his drink.
Maxwell snorted. “Egads, man, you are a bloody fool.” He raised
his glass in mocking salute. “You are surely the most stubborn, the most idiotic gent I know.”
He should be offended, and yet, it was hard to begrudge the other man for being accurate in this matter.
His friend planted his elbows on the edge of the table and leaned forward. “You do realize you are nearly, according to Redding, out of time.”
“I…” He allowed his response to trail off. By Christ, he was almost out of time. He shifted his attention from his drink to Maxwell. “The lady does not fit my criteria for a marchioness.”
“Does she have a fat dowry?”
He frowned. Odd, in all his meetings with Lady Prudence Tidemore, not once had he given thought to the size of the dowry attached to the lady’s name. Rather, it had been the catlike slant to the lady’s eyes when she smiled, as she so often did, or the turn of her stockinged ankle he’d spied in the park.
His friend rapped the table once, calling Christian’s attention. “I will answer that for you. The answer is yes. Rumored to be worth fifty-five thousand pounds.”
A chill crept along his skin at Maxwell’s flippant remarks. The way the other man spoke he might as well have been discussing the lineage of one of his prized Arabians. Furthermore… “How do you know how much the lady is worth?” he gritted out, stealing a look about. With scantily clad women on their laps, and the room filled with raucous laughter from gaming noblemen, the other lords present were firmly fixed on their own pleasures.
“The real question remains: why do I know about the lady’s dowry when you yourself do not? The answer?” he asked, not allowing Christian a moment to speak. “Following the lady’s missive, I took it upon myself to look into her worth.”
His hand trembled and liquid droplets splashed over the rim of his glass. Her worth. The lady was more than the land and wealth attached to her name.
“Would you know the truth?” The serious note to Maxwell’s words earned his continued attention. “The truth is, the lady represents everything you require to save your family, staff, and investments.” He callously ticked off the details upon his gloved fingers. “She is wealthy.”
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