Lords of Honor-The Collection

by Christi Caldwell

  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 brother’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.”

  “She is innocent,” he put in. The lady did not fit with the grasping future bride he’d hoped to bind himself to.

  Maxwell rolled his shoulders. “Are any women truly innocent?”

  No, the French sympathizer Lynette had proven as much. He braced for the familiar sting of bitter resentment that came with the mere thought of the dark-haired traitor. And yet, it did not come. He blinked slowly. For, in knowing Prudence Tidemore with her wide, honest smile and her lack of artifice on the dance floor and discourse, she’d proven there was such a thing as a good woman. It was all the more reason to avoid her. What right did he have to such goodness? Why, when so many others had lost because of his follies?

  “Shall I continue?”

  Pulled back to the present, Christian looked to Maxwell. “I suspect you will continue regardless of whether or not I protest.”

  His friend’s grin confirmed that supposition. “The lady has a scandal attached to her family and, as such, has been relegated to the role of wallflower. You would be doing her a great service in wedding her when most others likely will not so much as dance with her.”

  When you are disdained by Society and given the cut direct by gentlemen and ladies alike, you come to find heroism in the actions of one who is undaunted by the dictates of gossips…

  He took a swig of brandy and then set the partially filled glass down. “The lady has had but her first London Season and one that has only begun no less.” No, there would be some young gentleman to feed the dream in her heart for happily-ever-afters and words of love. Christian could not be that man she longed for. He clenched his glass so tight, the blood drained from his knuckles. God, how he despised that nameless man with every fiber of his worthless being.

  Maxwell steepled his fingers and drummed the tips together. “Then why do I not speak with a frankness that might penetrate your blasted obstinacy? There is Lucinda.” His gut clenched. “And your mother,” his friend continued mercilessly. Every man had a weakness and he had known Christian so well, he could place the arrows directly in the spots where he was most vulnerable. “There is Mac and Martin and every other servant who relies on your generosity.”

  “It is not generosity that resulted in their employment,” he replied instantly. How many of those men in his employ had been disdained for their disfigurements, when through their role on the battlefields of Europe had proven themselves far more worthy than Christian, or any other member of the ton?

  “Regardless,” Maxwell continued drumming his fingertips in that grating rhythm. “Do you think most peers will be willing to hire the limbless, blind, and deaf former soldiers the way you have?”

  Goddamn Maxwell for being correct and goddamn himself for needing a fortune to save everyone. He dragged his hands back and forth over his face. Some men were destined for heroics. They were those lauded figures who stories were told of like the Marquess of Drake’s battlefield bravery. Christian had never been that man. He’d always scrapped his way through life; reaching for more, but always finding himself just short. Never had that mattered so much as it did now when faced with the people now depending upon him. The people he would fail in two weeks’ time if he did not make that necessary match. He stared blankly across the table at Maxwell.

  The other man must have seen the bleakness in his soul reflected in his eyes. For Maxwell planted his elbows on the table and closed the gap between them. “Do you know what I believe?”

  Christian gave his head a slight shake.

  “I believe you’ve decided you don’t deserve any good in life. You’ve driven yourself to take men onto your staff as some form of penance.” His stomach roiled at how very close to the mark Maxwell was. His friend held his gaze. “You made a mistake. It does not make you a monster; it makes you a mere man.”

  Unable to hold the other man’s penetrating stare, Christian looked beyond his shoulder to the boisterous dandies in their colorful, satin garments. At one time, he’d been carefree and exuberant, filled with the energy that simply came from being alive. Yet, life had changed him. War had changed him. Just as it had forever altered Derek and so many others. Those men had not passed over the safety and security into the hands of the French the way Christian had. “I cannot wed her.” He spoke so quietly Maxwell leaned closer to hear those words. The truth he could not bring himself to admit to Maxwell, who was asking for and giving absolute honesty, was that it would forever shame him to know he’d bound a good woman to his worthless self. “There has to be another.”

  “There are.” Maxwell waggled his eyebrows. “If you fail to remember, I volunteered all number of ladies.”

  Alas, his friend was more tenacious than Lady Jersey with a morsel of gossip. “The lady is lovely and she wants to marry you.” A wry grin curved the other man’s lips. “And there can be far worse things than that.”

  Yes, there were no truer words spoken.

  Then Maxwell’s droll humor slipped. “She is not Lynette.” His friend spoke with a quiet adamancy.

  It was the first time they’d spoken her name. The beautiful and deceitful woman, who’d lured the planned movements of Christian’s regiment from a very foolish and a very much in love young man’s lips, had remained
a phantom ghost whose name was never uttered. He braced for the familiar flood of old hurts…that did not come. Oh, he would always despise himself for so naively trusting the Belgian woman whom he’d first lain with. But the agony of her deception had lifted, replaced by the joy he knew with the cheerful, sunny, unaffected Lady Prudence Tidemore.

  A lightness filled his chest. He wanted to wed her.

  His friend looked at him questioningly.

  “I know she is not Lynette.” He swiped his glass from the table and swallowed the remaining contents. It was a crime he’d ever put her into the category of that treacherous snake.

  “You are remarkably short on options,” his friend said. “The lady represents the ability to save your staff and care for your family.”

  He smiled and came to his feet, with his friend’s probing gaze on him. “You are indeed correct, I’ve little choice but the one presented me by the lady.”

  A flare of surprise flashed in Maxwell’s eyes. “Now comes the matter of convincing the brother,” he said, unhelpfully.

  The powerful earl’s furious ire from Christian’s waltzing with Prudence flashed to his mind’s eye, as well as his warning him away from the young lady in question. “Bloody Sinclair,” he declared.

  Yes, a man who’d wanted to slice off his hands for daring to go near her would hardly be welcomed into the familial fold anytime soon. Though in the earl’s defense, Christian would separate the limbs from any rake or rogue who came near his own sister. He tightened his jaw. And yet, knowing his low worth as he did, he wanted her for selfish reasons; reasons that moved beyond her dowry and to the tantalizing promise of her in his bed, in his arms, under him.

  With a resolute determination, he turned on his heel. No, there really was no option but marriage to the lady and, yet, suddenly the option teased him with the promise of them…

  “I recommend flowers,” Maxwell called after him.

  After his callous rejection earlier that morning, it would likely take a good deal more than flowers to bring Prudence ’round to the prospect of marriage to him.