Captivated by a Lady's Charm

by Christi Caldwell

  Those two words were so quietly spoken she may as well have imagined them. “You did,” she repeated numbly, demanding with her eyes more than that succinct utterance. He owed her more. She deserved more. Yet, it became apparent with the rattle of the carriage wheels, he intended to say nothing else. Prudence borrowed one of her brother’s favorite curses which caused her husband to flush and then presented her shoulder to him once more.

  She sat huddled in the corner of Christian’s carriage, nay her husband’s carriage, with her gaze trained on the ripped red velvet curtain. That tear an indication of his dwindling wealth, his need for her dowry, and his only use for her. A swell of bitterness worked up her throat and threatened to choke her as she lashed at herself with the humiliating words uttered in that flippant manner by Lord Maxwell. That unintentional revelation had proven the entire beginning of her relationship with Christian had been built on a wager, which may as well have been nothing more than a lie.

  Prudence gave silent thanks as the carriage rocked to a stop before his townhouse. Her new home. She peeled the curtain aside and looked out the window. A servant limped over to the carriage and without knocking, jerked the door open. Momentarily taken aback once more by Christian’s unconventional servants, she welcomed the momentary diversion from her own miserably dreary thoughts.

  The coarse stranger with a vicious scar on his right cheek grinned up inside. “My lord. Congratulations are in order, I understand.”

  That would depend on which party the burly stranger happened to ask.

  Christian murmured his thanks and when the servant stepped aside, he climbed down and reached his hand inside the carriage. Prudence eyed his long, powerful fingers cased in immaculate gloves a moment. Those hands that had caressed her and stirred desire within her she’d never dreamed she would know. Then with a disgusted shake of her head, she ignored his outstretched offering. As she came down hard on the pavement, she pitched sideways and threw her arms out to prevent an undignified fall. Her husband easily caught her against him, drawing her close to his chest.

  Her heart kicked up a quickened tempo and she damned her body for responding to him as it did. With hesitancy in his movements, Christian set her upon her feet and held out his arm. For a long moment she eyed it, and, realizing that any gawkers would love to be the first with a juicy morsel of gossip on the latest, hastily married Tidemore sister, Prudence placed her fingertips upon his sleeve. The muscles of his arm jumped at her touch.

  As they climbed the handful of chipped steps, she paid attention to those details she’d failed to note the evening of his ball—the broken door knocker, the chandelier with cracked crystals at the center of the foyer ceiling.

  She skimmed her gaze over the generous area, aware of her husband’s eyes on her, taking in her silent perusal. Did he expect her to turn her nose up at his lack of wealth? She’d always known what he had. She’d merely deluded herself into thinking what had brought him into her life had been something more honorable than a lost wager.

  “My lord, my lady, congratulations!”

  Prudence started at the booming voice and followed it to the burly man in black who rushed toward them.

  In a move that would have shocked her proper mother, the butler stuck his hand out and pumped Christian’s. She took in the butler’s missing ear and, for a moment, she set aside her own misery as an involuntary pang of sympathy struck her for that loss.

  “Thank you, Dalrymple. May I present my wife, the new Marchioness of St. Cyr. Prudence, my—our—butler, Dalrymple.”

  From under her lashes, Prudence assessed her husband’s body language. He presented his mouth as he spoke so that the hard of hearing servant could read his lips. She wrinkled her brow. How did this considerate man who’d hire this disparate staff fit with a coldhearted dastard who’d trick her into marriage? Prudence cleared her throat. “It is an honor.” She unfastened the grommets of her cloak and shrugged out of the garment. A young footman rushed forward to collect it and she froze momentarily at the man’s missing right hand. She quickly lifted her gaze and mustered a smile.

  “You have married a good man,” Dalrymple thundered. “One of the most honorable—”

  Christian winced. “Dalrymple, if you will escort Her Ladyship abovestairs? I have business to see to.” And avoiding her gaze, but not before she detected the flash of regret in their brown depths, her new husband, still wearing his cloak, turned on his heel—

  She shot her eyebrows up. By God. He was leaving. He would simply walk off and have her escorted abovestairs? “Where. Do. You. Think. You. Are. Going?” she bit out.

  Her words brought him to an abrupt halt. Christian turned slowly around to face her once more.

  From the corner of her eye, she spied Dalrymple looking between her and his employer and then make a hasty retreat with the footman.

  Smart men. Too bad the same could not be said for their employer.

  “What am I doing?” Christian asked slowly. Now it was his turn to repeat back words. Good, he should be unsettled. The blackguard.

  She folded her arms at her chest. All the while her fingers itched with the urge to slap his expressionless face. “I will not be sent abovestairs without so much as the benefit of a discussion from the man who trapped me into marriage.”

  He winced. “I did not trap you.”

  Prudence narrowed her eyes. Yes, she’d made him the offer. But that had been when she’d believed he’d been honorable and good…and more, that he’d appreciated that she was not a copy of all those perfect, practiced, English ladies. Pain pulled at her heart. She swallowed back a wave of hurt and fed her fury. “You have already demonstrated loose lips where others are concerned,” she snapped taking some small pleasure when he blanched. “I’ll not have this discussion in the midst of your foyer before your servants’ peering eyes.”

  “My servants would not—”

  She withered him to silence with a glare. Snapping her damp skirts, she spun on her heel and then came to an abrupt stop. Talk of a deuced way to ruin one’s exit. Prudence spun back. “Where are your damned offices?”

  Wordlessly, he held out his elbow. Prudence eyed it. By God. Was he mad? Christian let his arm fall to his side and then with a sigh, motioned for her to follow him. With each step that carried them closer to his office, hurt warred with anger so that when they reached his office and closed the door behind them, a swell of volatile emotion robbed her of any eloquent words.

  Her husband strode over to his sideboard and poured himself a snifter of brandy. She took in his long, steady fingers as he raised that glass to his lips. He could be so coolly unaffected when her world had been pulled out from under her. “Well?”

  He froze with his glass raised halfway to his lips. “What is there to say?”

  Prudence planted her hands atop her hips. “The truth. Some of it was true and some of it was not, you said. I want those truths. Y-you owe me that.” The faint tremble to those last words ruined all strength in that sharp command.

  Christian abandoned his untouched drink on the mahogany sideboard. “You know the truth.” He swiped a hand over his face. “I am…was destitute.” And now because of her, his staff and family would cease to struggle. “I—”

  She strode across the room. “I am talking about the wager and the dance and what preceded the wager.” Would he deliberately skirt around that which mattered? “You said you wished to dance with me.” Her words came fast and furious. “Was that not true?” With a cry she tossed her hands up. “The dance meant something to m-me.” Her words caught and she momentarily slid her eyes closed. When not a single gentleman had bothered to partner her in so much as a quadrille, her husband had been the one man who’d not given a jot that she couldn’t dance or whether she was a Tidemore. And it had all been nothing more than a dare between two gentlemen. A viselike pressure squeezed about her chest. “That moment, that waltz, set you apart from every other man who was too cowardly or disinterested to dance with me. Yet you wer
e merely there because of a dare.”

  Christian’s heart hitched at the agonized tremble to her words. From the moment he’d stumbled upon Prudence in the streets of London, an unfettered smile had adorned her lips. Through the misery of the ton events she’d suffered through and the gossip she lamented, not once had she wavered in her effervescent joy. Until now. Until me.

  The muscles of his stomach twisted until he wanted to throw his head back and hurl insults at the mocking fates. Once again, Christian had proven himself capable of nothing but destruction. Blackthorne’s life, Prudence’s happiness.

  His wife took a sure step toward him. “You have nothing to say to me, Christian?” The hurt bleeding through her eyes belied that bold, unwavering move she made.

  He had a thousand and one things to say to her but none of which could ever make this right.

  “I was not only there on a wager. I was there—” Christian froze and the air left him on a slow hiss. He stared unblinkingly at his wife’s ravaged features.

  You bloody fool.

  He’d been there because that was where he was supposed to be in that moment. Their paths were meant to connect. From Bond Street to Lady Drake’s ballroom. Only, he’d not realized as much—until now. How could he not have realized that this slip of a woman had been destined for him when fate had only held ugly in store for him before?

  She made a sound of disgust and made to step around him.

  He held his hands up in supplication, willing her to see that, in this, he offered the only truth he was capable of. “I was there because of you.” Emotion graveled his voice.

  She searched his face. Hope flared in her eyes, but then quickly died. Prudence ticked her chin up a notch. “But you were only there on a wager.”

  Ah, God. The fact she believed that dug at his heart. “It was not a wager.” His lips pulled in a grimace. For ultimately that is what it had been. “Or rather it was not strictly on a wager.”

  Fury sparked in her eyes. “Ah, no. It was about the heiress to whom you were forced to dance with.”

  God, what a blunder he was making of this. He came over to her and took her shoulders in his hands, forcing her gaze to his. “I saw you, tapping your toes and tilting your head and I wanted to dance with you. I wanted to waltz with you so I could know the feel of you in my arms. And Maxwell knew that, even if I did not at the moment realize that myself.”

  Her eyes locked with his. And this time she said nothing.

  Encouraged by her silence, he continued. “I did not say…” He tightened his grip reflexively upon her and then forced himself to lighten his hold. “I did not say any of what was in the paper. Those words belonged to Maxwell.” And some bloody gossip had manipulated them and somehow made Christian the owner. How he despised the ton for reveling in the misery of others.

  She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “You did not?” Hope hung on her words.

  So much of his life was a lie that it was hard to sort out just what was true any longer. This, however, was true. He gave a brusque nod.

  “Well, then.” Prudence ran her palms over her cheeks as the fight drained from her tense shoulders. She drew in a shuddering breath. “In fairness to you, I never made demands that you care for me. I tried to convince myself of that and, for a time, I managed to believe my own lie, believing that in time you would come to care for me.” She glanced at her hands. “I do not know what was real or what was false.” Her words broke on a sob. “And do you know what that is like to…to love someone and know you were nothing more than a dowry?” Tears pooled in her eyes and splayed him open. He would sooner lob off his own right leg than willingly cause her pain. A woman who’d only ever had a smile for him, now crying before him.

  Then her words registered. His mouth went dry. She loved him. Her words came as if down an endless, empty corridor and, with them, an explosion of joy that raced through him.

  And then he crashed down to the ugly reality that had always been his life. “You do not know me, Prudence.” His voice sounded tired to his own ears. “Not truly. The parts you do know should prove I’m unworthy of that gift.” He made to turn away, but she moved in a rustle of noisy satin skirts and placed herself in front of him.

  “That dance meant something to me.” Had she shouted the words and then spit in his face she could not have hurt him more than this wounded whisper. “You were different than the others because when no one wished to dance with me, you did, and yet, it was a lie.”

  Christian jerked, feeling as though she’d punched him in the midsection. How could she not know how much she meant to him? Because you have never told her… Because he’d not allowed himself to confront that truth—until now. Instead, so scared by his past, he’d spent these past weeks convincing himself he had complete and total control of his heart. When in truth, he’d had little control of anything since Prudence had stepped onto Bond Street all those months ago and into his life. He tried to form words around the dryness of his mouth and the thickness of his throat.

  “If you will excuse me?” she said with the grace and dignity of a queen. “I have some things to think on.”

  Likely the folly in marrying him. Woodenly, he stepped aside, allowing her to open the door.

  She made to leave and panic churned in his gut. “It was never a lie,” he said gruffly.

  Prudence halted mid-step, but did not turn around “I wanted that dance.” He needed her to believe those words, to take them with her as truth. Because even with no wager involved, he’d ached to know the feel of her hand in his and her body close. “Maxwell simply gave me the push to dance with a woman who I had no right to.” And for it, that dance had irrevocably changed his life.

  Her back went taut and for an instant, he thought she’d say something more, but then without another word, closed the door behind her and left.

  Christian stood long after she’d gone, staring at the wood panel door, empty in ways he’d not even been hollow after Lynette’s betrayal.

  From across the room, the log shifted and exploded noisily, drawing his attention. He gazed into the forlorn depths of the fire. During the war, after the cannon fire had ceased to echo in his ears and the agonized roars and screams of tortured men had faded to faint whispers, an odd emptiness would settle in his soul; a moment where he’d wondered if he was alive, or dead, or moving in some strange netherworld between.

  This moment with Prudence shattered by that one foolish wager, felt remarkably like all those dark times.

  Christian swiped a hand over his face and looked about this inherited office formerly belonging to the late Marquess of St. Cyr. The piles of ledgers and folios upon his cluttered desk spoke to the franticness of a man who’d been out of options. “I was never supposed to care for her.” His ragged whisper echoed mockingly off the walls. He stared blankly at those disorganized piles. The goal had been to find a title-grasping, emotionless lady who’d no dreams or illusions of who he was or what he was. All of that had been changed with just one waltz.

  What if there had been no dance? What if there had been another gentleman to see her, really see her, and honorably grant her that set, and forever own her heart? A bleak emptiness sucked at his insides from the mere thought. He’d told her he couldn’t care for her or give her more. Only that latter part had proven true.

  How in just a few weeks had his world been so upended? Because of her…

  Chapter 22

  Lesson Twenty-two

  A good gentleman is a modest one without an inflated sense of self…

  Prudence didn’t have a blasted clue as to where she was going. She moved down the unfamiliar halls of her new home. All the while, Christian’s response haunted her. How was she to explain the remorse she’d seen reflected in his eyes? If he were the cold, calculated man who’d danced with her on a wager and all along laid an enticing lure for a young woman who’d longed for love, then why feel anything but triumphant? He’d won. She was now his, and more importantly, her dowry belonged t
o him.

  “Do you require assistance to your rooms, my lady?” The butler’s voice sounded from the opposite end of the corridor.

  A startled gasp escaped her and she pressed a hand to her pounding heart at having her ponderings interrupted.

  Dalrymple approached and she forced a smile as he came to a stop beside her. “That would be lovely,” she said, holding the butler’s stare the way her husband had done a short while ago.

  The man shifted the cane in his hand and she adjusted her pace to match his slow, precise steps. As they wound their way through the halls and up the stairs to her new rooms, she eyed the signs of wear upon the thin carpet lining the halls. Stains and tears all spoke to years of wear, just another reminder of Christian’s financial circumstances and the daily reminders he’d likely confronted of those circumstances.

  “This way, my lady,” the butler yelled. They proceeded down a long, darkened corridor. A number of places upon the wall marked the spot a sconce had once been; likely the gold pieces long since sold. Through the struggles her family had suffered at Society’s hands, she’d never been without. Shamefully, she’d not allowed herself to consider the fortuitousness that came with her birth and her father and brother’s wise management of their estates. The hall echoed with the soft tread of her footsteps and Dalrymple’s shuffling gait. Only, what would Sin have done if her family had been in such dire straits? The brother he was, she did not doubt he’d have sold his soul to the devil if need be to see his family cared for. In that way, Christian, she suspected, was not unlike in that regard.

  She eyed the paintings hanging on the walls of bewigged, frowning strangers. Dust coated some of the elaborate, gold frames that hung askew. “Achoo!”

  “Blessings, my lady.”

  “Thank you,” she returned, tipping her face up to his so he might better read her lips. Then, in the long row of angry, old ancestors of the marquess, a splash of color caught her notice. She held a hand up a moment and then, beckoned by the crimson, wandered over. Prudence angled her head. By the crooked grin and too-long, golden tresses, the uniformed soldier could be confused for no one other than her husband.