My Surrender

by Connie Brockway

  That was it then. She was ruined. Except her weak limbs had far less to do with the knowledge of her downfall than with the man who’d caused it. She had been kissed many times, by many men. None of them had ever affected her like this, leaving her breathless and mossy-headed, her pulse skittering like hail on the windowpane, her stomach hollow and her joints liquid. She must be coming down with something.

  She forced herself to meet Ginny’s overbright, overly knowing gaze. “How gratifying for Lord Skelton. I assume you verified his ‘worst fears’?”

  “Only after much hand-wringing and having secured innumerable vows of secrecy from him which he duly gave and which means that by now”—she glanced at the clock, which showed one o’clock in the morning—“Everyone, including the Lord Mayor’s second gardener, has heard about it.”

  She patted the cushion beside her. “Come sit down and tell me all.”

  Reluctantly, Charlotte pulled the soft chamois gloves through her fingers, unwilling to stay longer, wanting to be alone, to think. But also, she feared, to remember. “There’s not much to tell and I am exhausted beyond belief.”

  “That, my girl, is definitely a lie,” Ginny said, her arched brow tipping upward. “Come. Tell me.”

  “He chased off young Lieutenant Albright, commandeered me for two dances, dragged me out into the garden, making care that we should be appropriately framed by the doorway, and kissed me.”

  “And you?”

  “I kissed him back. Enthusiastically.”

  “Good girl. This needn’t all be unpleasant work. And then?”

  “Then he hustled me across the entire crowded ballroom, threw his greatcoat over my shoulders, and lifted me bodily into a hired chaise, which he then entered himself, calling out loudly for the driver to take us to my home.”

  “Perfect!” Ginny approved. “And then?”

  “Then, two blocks later, he rapped on the carriage ceiling, bade the driver to stop, got out, and wished me a good evening.”

  “Oh?” Ginny sounded disappointed. “That’s all?”

  “That’s all except that he mentioned his intention of taking me for a drive in Hyde Park tomorrow during the fashionable hour in order, so he said, to cement my infamy in the minds of any who hadn’t quite tumbled to the obvious yet.” She didn’t tell Ginny how Dand had looked during that short carriage ride, his face obscured by the shadows as he sat slouched in the far corner of the dark carriage interior, silently vibrating with palpable tension.

  “Excellent. I can see he has thought the entire process out to an admirable degree. I begin to think I approve of Mr. Ross. Tell me, how did he look?”

  “Look?”

  “Yes,” Ginny said. “Was he as uncouth looking as”—she cleared her throat—“as you have always said he was? Or had he adopted a bit of town bronze?”

  “Oh, he was most bronzed. And while his actions were decidedly uncivilized, he looked perfectly well maintained.”

  “Even more excellent!” Ginny cried. “The news shall travel so fast it may even overtake St. Lyon on his way north. But to make sure, I must pen him a letter tonight and let drop that I am very much afraid that my headstrong young friend Miss Nash has gotten herself in a most difficult situation.”

  The man pushed through a crowd gathered around a boy hawking newspapers by calling out bits about Napoleon’s latest exploits, barely aware of the jostling crowd. He had to concentrate. The board had changed within the last twenty-four hours. Luckily he was adept at accommodating change.

  But…God help him, he hadn’t realized that he would be so affected. That he would find it so difficult. Even now emotion threatened to overwhelm him.

  He swallowed hard, feeling the grip of his old mania upon him and looking quickly, spied a wretched little yard, black at this late hour and empty. Head low, he stumbled into the inky darkness—his breathing ragged, his throat constricting—and dug in his greatcoat for the penknife he carried there. Then, with a sense of shame and relief, he peeled off his glove and splayed his fingers wide. No more visible scars. Not anymore. Once this was over and he took his rightful place in Society, he would no longer need to…perform this abomination upon himself.

  He pulled the thin, lethally pointed blade out of its malachite case and stared down at the silvery tip lying so sweetly, perfectly honed in the palm of his hand and tried to find the wherewithal to resist its glittering allure.

  His head fell back against the brick wall, all the emotions within him fighting each other, pride and despair and anger and…yes, love, twisting and twisting and twisting his heart, his very soul!

  With a soft cry of self-disgust he plunged the tip of the blade into the tender flesh between his index and middle finger, hissing at the piquant, the brain-clearing pain. Lovely pain, like acid eating away the guilt and doubt and horror, leaving nothing behind but exquisite…pure…pain.

  Slowly, calm returned. His humor returned. His sense of perspective was restored. His mental acuity, always keen, seemed sharper. He felt the world a more lucid place. Carelessly, he slipped the blade back in its sheath, his thoughts already having turned to the night’s events and the various problems they posed. He thought about the girl and he thought about the whore and he thought about the man known as Dand Ross.

  Of course. Of course. Why hadn’t he seen it before? It would all work out splendidly. Even better than he’d originally planned. It was almost, indeed, as if God meant it to be.

  Perhaps he did.

  8

  Culholland Square, Mayfair

  July 20, 1806

  “MISS NASH! MISS NASH!” Lizette, Charlotte’s maid, did not even bother to knock on the door. She simply burst into the room, eyes wild and mouth agape.

  Charlotte struggled upright in her bed, alarmed. “What is it, Lizzie? What ever is wrong?”

  The maid flew to the bedroom windows, snapping open the heavy brocade draperies and filling the room with bright sunlight. She spun around, her hand to her chest.

  “There is a man downstairs in the front hall! He showed up in a fancy carriage ten minutes ago demanding that the butler let him in. But when he told him that you were not receiving, he came in anyway! He’s down there now and told me to tell you to hurry!”

  “He told you what?” She blinked to clear her eyes. She hadn’t slept much the night before. Humiliation kept her wide awake until the wee hours of the morning. And not mortification based on the fact that she’d ruined herself in Society, but humiliation founded solely on her inability to hide her physical reaction to Dand Ross’s unexpected amatory expertise.

  “Who is he?”

  “I don’t rightly know, ma’am! A nabob, I’m thinking. He’s brown as an East Indian but dressed like a toff, tricked out neat as a pin, and speaks a treat. Only not a gentleman. ’Cause what gentleman would act in such a manner? None!”

  Dand was here? Charlotte thought in confusion. He’d said he was coming for her in the afternoon.

  She glanced at the ormolu clock sitting on the fireplace mantle. It showed nine o’clock. An ungodly hour to be calling unless something momentous had happened.

  She scooted out of the big, soft bed, thrusting her arms through the diaphanous jonquil silk dressing gown that Lizette, bless her anticipation, held out for her, then hastened out the door.

  “Shall I send for the footmen?” Lizette asked, scurrying after her.

  “No!” Charlotte called over her shoulder as she hurried down the stairway on bare feet. Something must be amiss. Otherwise why would Dand insist that she hurry? She dashed down the steps and along the landing above the hallway—

  “Someone go tell the wench not to waste time primping.” Dand’s voice, bored, imperious, swollen with masculine indulgence and flavored with a subtly foreign accent, brought her up short. “A fellow wants to see what manner of ride he’s buying under all the rigging, eh?”

  That brought her up short. She looked down over the balustrade into the front hall. Dand stood in the center of the p
arquetry floor, leaning lightly on a silver-headed walking cane as he looked about with casual interest.

  He didn’t look overset. He looked quite comfortable. This was all wrong. She was a seasoned veteran of a hundred flirtations. She was a mistress of titillation. She was the incomparable, the unattainable, the provocative Miss Charlotte Nash. He was a…a…rat catcher!

  But a handsome rat catcher. Deuced handsome. There was no denying it. His navy blue coat stretched across his broad shoulders without a single crease marring its perfectly tailored surface. Buff-colored trousers hugged muscular thighs while black Hessian boots that gleamed with a mirrorlike finish encased his calves.

  “What are you doing here?” she called down from where she hung over the rail.

  He looked up. His eyes alit with pleasure. “Ah, Lottie! And looking most fetching. I declare myself inordinately pleased. Indeed, I am!”

  The sardonic gleam in his eyes made her uncomfortably aware of her dishabille, her short curls tousled from the bed and her face probably pallid after her fitful night’s sleep. For a pert coquette and heartbreaker of the highest order, she was at a decided disadvantage. “What are you doing here?”

  “Well, since I have taken over the payments, I decided I’d rather avail myself of your winsome company than add the expense of a hotel room to our arrangement.” He’d definitely adopted a slight French accent.

  “Our arrangement?” she echoed. “What the devil do you—”

  “Mind the children, Lottie,” Dand replied in a low voice, his gaze traveling over her shoulder.

  Turning her head, Charlotte followed his gaze. Behind her, Lizette hovered in wide-eyed, titillated amazement.

  “And…” she heard Dand murmur.

  She looked down into the hallway. The footmen, Brian and Curtis, stood below, flanking the front door, their expressions similarly bewildered and astonished, ready to act at her first word. She leaned further out and saw the cook, her head poking out from behind the green baize door leading to the kitchen, nodding as if all her worst suspicions had finally been confirmed. Even the tweenie, her dustbin still clutched in her hand, had crept out of the front parlor to see what was going on.

  Oh, dear. Oh, my.

  A soft sound escaped her lips.

  Dand clucked his tongue sympathetically. “Ah, my poor darling. I didn’t mean for your maid to wake you. But the silly chit would not listen to reason.” He tilted his head as though a thought had just occurred to him.

  “Why, Lottie,” he said, in a gently scolding tone, “you didn’t inform your staff about me, did you? Naughty girl. No wonder everyone looks so green about the gills. Tell them to be about their business, why don’t you?”

  He looked around at the servants, his gaze very level, a warning in its dark depths. “Or shall I?”

  “No. No.” She hesitated. What tone did one take when one was all but announcing to one’s staff that one had become a Loose Woman? He’d caught her entirely unprepared. It wasn’t fair. She would have to improvise. Something casual and haughty and polished…“All of you, go away. Go to work. Just go!”

  Dand smiled apologetically at her startled staff. “She desires a moment alone with me.”

  “Go!”

  Her staff went, scurrying away with the alacrity of beetles under a bright light. A few seconds later the only evidence left of their onetime presence was the gentle swinging of the green baize door.

  Dand grinned up at her. “That went well, I thought.”

  “Did you?” she asked coolly. “I bow to your doubtless greater expertise. Now, again and for the last time, what the blazes do you think you are doing?”

  “Tch, tch, such language. You know, Lottie, the most exclusive birds of paradise are known for being genteel in public and otherwise in private. I am much afraid, my dear, that you have it quite reversed.”

  “Dand—”

  “Just trying to offer what advice I can,” he said lightly, balancing his cane on his shoulder and starting up the stairs toward her. His movements caused her to back up. He couldn’t possibly mean to come into her bedroom! There were some lines even she had never crossed. This was one of them and she reacted instinctively.

  “Stop. Stop right there!” she commanded. He halted halfway up the stairs, regarding her in puzzlement. “You. You wait in the…in the dining room!”

  “You know for such a tough little piece of work, you are amazingly provincial—”

  She didn’t linger to hear more but spun on her heels and marched down the landing and to her room. Quickly, she shed her nightdress and dashed water in her face before scrubbing at her teeth with a bristle brush and hurriedly donning a prim and extremely modest gown of plum-striped ivory batiste.

  What was the meaning of this? Clearly, he came here intent upon lending verisimilitude to their act. But exactly how far did he intend to go to solidify her shattered reputation? She wasn’t sure of anything other than that it might be farther than she would like to go. Was afraid to go, her imagination whispered as the memory of their passionate embrace stole upon her, leaving flutters in her stomach. Enough. Sweeping her short mass of ringlets back from her face with a black velvet ribbon and having regained her aplomb, she went to face Dand.

  “Where is he?” she asked the footman.

  “Monsieur Rousse is in the dining room, ma’am.”

  Monsieur Rousse? He really had gone mad.

  She found Dand settled comfortably at the head of her dining table, spooning a bit of egg onto a piece of toast. Upon her entrance, he waved his silver fork over his plate. “Your cook makes the most amazing eggs, Lottie! Claims scallions does the magic.”

  She ignored this, moving gracefully toward the table. She was worldly too, and it was time that he remembered it. “At the risk of redundancy,” she said tightly, “what are you doing here? And when did you adopt a French—”

  He cut her short with a brief, telling gesture and reached for the coffee pot, pouring out a thin stream of black, steaming liquid into his cup. “The French custom of drinking coffee in the morning?” he interjected smoothly, casting a warning glance at the doorway and thus alerting her to his suspicions that they were being eavesdropped upon. “Because I am French.”

  He smiled sunnily, making Charlotte wonder for a second if he was, indeed, partially French. He certainly spoke the language as a native. And not the rough patois of the commoner, but the silky buff of the aristocrat. But no. That was nonsense. He was a Scottish orphan, playacting.

  “You ought to eat,” Dand went on comfortably. “Curtis!”

  At once the door leading to the kitchen swung open and her youngest footman entered. Dand was right; the servants were listening in. “Sir?”

  “Miss Nash requires sustenance. Egg?” His brows rose inquiringly, and his gaze traveled over her slender body in insolent assessment. “Two eggs. And toast.”

  This was too much. She was not a broodmare he won in a bet and come to see if she was worth keeping. She was supposed to be his mistress. Mistresses were treated by their aristocratic lovers with a great deal of charm and adulation. Or so she’d heard.

  Seeing the storm gathering in her eyes, he went on. “And honey. Clearly she requires sweetening.”

  Curtis, well-trained footman that he was, managed to excise his budding smile, but he could not hide the unabashed twinkle in his eye. “At once, sir.”

  “And no more hovering about the door,” Dand added as an afterthought.

  “I meant no disrespect, sir. Only hoping to provide as prompt service as possible, sir.”

  “I am certain. But I shall take it greatly amiss should I ever discover anyone listening at doors. You might mention this to the staff.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  As soon as Curtis left, Dand settled back in the chair. “Now we can speak.”

  “Oh, thank you,” Charlotte said sarcastically, pulling out the chair at the opposite end of the long table.

  “My dear,” he said as she prepared to be
seated, “I have done what I could to make us private, but if you insist on sitting twelve feet away, I daresay it will not take an ear to the door to hear our conversation.”

  He was right. But he needn’t look so smug. She had, she could see, a great deal of catching up to do before she regained an equal footing with Dand. She had given away far too much during last night’s kiss. But that was last night and this was this morning, and she had remembered who she was and who she must be if she was to succeed in her masquerade.

  With a gracious nod, she walked toward him. He rose and pulled out a chair for her, which she accepted.

  “Now,” she said, motioning him to be seated, “please. Speak. First, why the French surname?”

  “While I liked your notion of introducing me as your onetime neighbor’s lurking lad, I decided it would be too easy to disprove,” he answered. “Your father, my dear, was once a man of some means and your childhood home was in one of York’s most exclusive neighborhoods. I am sure there are others in London today who once shared that same neighborhood and who could say with frightening surety just who inhabited which house on each and every street.”

  “And your pretending to be French helps us how?”

  “A French émigré,” he corrected. “Andre Rousse who, with his family, once shared a glorious season in Bristol after escaping the dire goings-on in my poor papa’s native country. There happy chance led to our fateful meeting.” He paused in his recitation and fixed her with a brightly inquiring look. “Do you ever think our meeting was fateful, Lottie? I do. At any rate, our families met.

  “I am sure you appreciate the brilliance of this fable, do you not? Should anyone find it odd you never mentioned me, well, one doesn’t mention one’s French affiliations these days unless absolutely necessary, does one?”

  She had to concede his plan had merit. “I suppose that makes sense.”

  “’Struth, you shall turn my head with such flattery.”

  She almost smiled. She placed her chin in her hand and tipped her head. “But why are you here, Dand?”