Regardless, the declaration had thankfully put an end to Pru’s uncomfortable conversation with Christopher Chance. How had the devil noticed that she’d been looking at Lord Beasley? Had it been that obvious? She’d been doing it to keep her gaze from lingering on Christopher’s too-handsome face. Apparently, her plan had backfired. The dining room had cleared sometime after Trent and Winnie declared their undying love for one another. The ladies, wiping their eyes, and declaring that they had, of course, seen the match coming all along, had withdrawn to one of the drawing rooms at the front of the estate, while the men had retired to Lord Weston’s study to have their drinks and lament over Ballantine’s meeting with the parson’s noose.
Now they were all back together in the drawing room. Pru’s eyes immediately alighted on Lord Beasley. She had to find some way to get the man’s attention. She wasn’t going to find herself a husband by just sitting here and waiting after all. She’d already tried that. Mother might have been kind in the delivery of the message, but the implication was clear, Pru must do her duty and make a good match. Now was a time for action.
She stood and moved carefully over toward Lord Beasley. He seemed to be fumbling in his waistcoat pocket for something when he glanced up and saw her coming. A look that could only be described as fright registered on his pale face for a moment. He immediately abandoned the search for whatever he’d been fumbling for and instead turned his attentions toward locating a place to set his drink. He deposited his glass on the nearest hard surface and turned toward the door. Pru followed him.
“Lord Beasley,” she called, trailing after him. “Lord Beasley, wait.”
He did not slow his pace, however, and was gone from the room in a matter of seconds. Pru’s shoulders drooped. She sighed. This husband-hunting business was quite a chore. She took a sip of tea and contemplated her choices. After a few moments, she decided to follow him. It had taken Winnie years to wring a declaration out of Lord Trent, hadn’t it? These things weren’t simple. Besides, Mama was counting on her. Pru wasn’t about to let her down.
By the time she made it to the corridor, however, Lord Beasley was gone. Like a phantom, that man. He was surprisingly fast for such a slight person. Drat. What was she to do? She crossed her arms over her chest and absently wandered over to the French doors that led out from the back of the house into the frozen gardens. A walk in the gardens always served to clear her head. She needed some fresh air. Even if it was freezing fresh air. She opened the door to a nearby drawing room and searched about. There was a fur blanket lying on a settee. Perfect! She hurried over to the settee, grabbed the blanket, wrapped it over her shoulders, and made her way back into the corridor to the French doors. She pushed open one of the doors, the frigid December air blasted her, but there was something bracing about it too. She stepped outside, sucked in a breath, and allowed the sharp crispness to fill her lungs. She blew out a breath, watching as it made a puff of gray in the dark night. It was nearly entirely black outside. The only light shone through the windows from the inside the estate. She pushed a slipper through the thin veneer of snow that remained on the stone of the terrace after a light sprinkling earlier in the day.
The world was so quiet and calm and free at night outside, especially in winter. It reminded her of an evening she’d been out alone in a garden before. Feeling free. Though it had been much warmer then. And there had been copious amounts of champagne, not tiny sips of tea. And Christopher Chance had been there.
A click sounded behind her. She turned to see Christopher coming through the door. She wrapped the blanket more tightly around her shoulders and held her breath. Had he followed her? He didn’t appear to even notice her and went about lighting his cheroot. Another reminder of a night eighteen months ago.
“Lady Prudence,” he finally drawled, revealing the fact that he did, obviously, know she was there.
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Finally, she said, “We shouldn’t be out here together alone.”
“Why?” he replied in a nonchalant tone.
“It’s wrong,” she informed him, straightening her shoulders under the blanket.
He took a drag from his cheroot. “According to whom?”
“You should not be smoking in my presence either.”
He flicked the cheroot. “Does it bother you?”
Why was he so very calm? Or more importantly, why wasn’t she? “I . . . I never considered it before.” She hesitated. “It’s just . . . it’s simply not done.” There. How was that for an argument? Dolt.
“Again, according to whom?” he asked with an unrepentant grin. “I’ll put it out if you dislike it, however.”
She quietly contemplated it for a moment. Did she dislike it? There was something comforting about the scent, actually.
“Do you wish me to?” he prodded.
“I don’t . . . I’m not certain.” She pulled the blanket even more tightly around her shoulders as if it could protect her from these questions, from his nonchalance.
He dropped the cheroot to the graveled pathway and crushed it under his boot.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
“You never answered.” He pressed his palms against the balustrade behind him. He wasn’t wearing an overcoat either and yet, he didn’t shiver. Apparently, the man was immune to cold.
“Answer what?” she asked almost startled.
“According to whom? Who is in the arbiter of these rules?”
She cast her glance about as if looking for the answer in the light dusting of snow. “I don’t know. Society, I suppose.”
“Ah, Society as a collective? No one in particular?”
She clutched at the ends of the blanket and straightened her spine. “You must agree that a civilized Society should abide by a certain set of rules and behavior.”
“Must I? Why?” He turned fully toward her and even in the slight light she could see his dark-gray gaze as it captured hers.
“It’s just . . . just that . . . it’s only proper.”
“Proper,” he echoed, “what if I told you I don’t put much stake into what is proper?”
She arched a brow at that. “That would not surprise me given you’re a pirate. But I myself put a great deal of stake into what’s proper.”
“Do you?”
She blushed at that. Why was he always answering things with questions? It was quite disconcerting. She didn’t like to be disconcerted. And she was entirely disconcerted at present, remembering the last time they were together alone in a moonlit garden, albeit a much warmer one than the one in which they found themselves at present.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“I find that difficult to believe, my lady.”
She swallowed. My lady. That’s what he’d called her so often that night so long ago. Her throat worked up and down. “Wh . . . why?” There. She could answer with a question, too. Her gaze never left his face.
“Because despite the impropriety of the situation and our past together, despite the fact that you profess to never break rules, you’re still here alone with me.”
“You’re a sin!” she blurted, then pulled a corner of the blanket up quickly to cover her mouth.
Christopher blinked. “I’m a what? A sin?”
“I mean sinful. A sinner,” she mumbled. This time, she pulled the blanket up over her nose and blinked at him over the top.
“Well, that, I never denied,” he drawled.
“And I’m a . . . I’m not.”
“Not what?” He took a step closer.
She took a step back. “Not a sinner. At least not purposefully.” She resisted the insane urge to cover her entire face with the blanket. At least then she wouldn’t be staring into the face of temptation.
Sixteen different retorts sprung to Chance’s mind, none of them particularly flattering to Lady Prudence. As he had it on the best authority—his own—that she had sinned a time or two. He decided to say the safe thing. For once. “Congratulations.”<
br />
“I’m not looking for congratulations,” she retorted.
“Then what are you looking for?”
Her chest rose and fell under her blanket as she took a deep breath and she had a frightened look in her eyes. “Lord Beasley. I’m looking for Lord Beasley. That’s why I came out here in the first place.”
Chance glanced back and forth over both shoulders. “That’s unfortunate because Lord Beasley doesn’t appear to be here at the moment. You’ll have to make do with me.”
“No!” Lady Prudence clapped a blanketed hand over her mouth. “I mean, no, um, thank you. I’ll just go back—” She made to walk past him toward the door.
What the hell was her preoccupation with Beasley? The man’s most interesting bit of conversation had been about the number of cracks in the wood floor in Lord Weston’s study earlier. He was not a good conversationalist and not particularly handsome if Chance knew anything about the preferences of ladies. And he was entirely certain he knew a good deal about the preferences of ladies. His anger at her preoccupation with Beasley made Chance determined to elicit a reaction out of her.
He allowed a slow, seductive smile to drift across his face. “What’s the matter, Lady Prudence? Afraid you’ll be tempted to sin?”
Chapter Ten
Pru went ahead and did it. She put a blanketed hand over her entire face. She had to. She couldn’t look at him. Was she afraid she’d be tempted to sin? Of course she was afraid! In fact, all she could think about was the last time she’d been tempted to sin—had sinned!—with this man. The past came hurtling back at her as if it were happening once again.
Eighteen months earlier
The Culpeppers’ gardens were lit with the light of a hundred sparkling candles as Pru wandered along the bushes and hedges and gorgeous flowering plants. It was positively scandalous of her to have sneaked out here alone while the ball remained thriving inside, but it had been rather hot inside the ballroom and the glittering stars paired with the cool night air had beckoned to her. Walking in a garden always served to clear her head and she was in need of some head-clearing this evening. She’d had a glass of very sparkly, very delicious champagne. Her head seemed to be fuzzy and while she’d never been one for giggling, it seemed giggles were abundant this evening. Champagne was giggle-inducing, she decided. A brisk walk in the garden might cure the affliction.
Being in the gardens felt like freedom. Every moment of her day for the last eighteen years had been regimented, planned, filled with the proper activities of proper young ladies, embroidery, the planning of large parties, French, Bible study. The odd trip to Bond Street to shop for new fripperies for her bonnet. Things of that nature.
“Bloody hell!” The curse words caught Pru’s attention, and she gasped and put her hand over her mouth. The two scandalous words had been uttered by a man, a man she could not see at present. But she certainly could hear him. He seemed to be shuffling about on the other side of the hedge, making a great deal of racket and not just with his cursing. She hesitated, biting her lip. She should scurry back to the house immediately. She shouldn’t have come here in the first place. She didn’t belong here. She turned, picking up her skirts to leave.
“Would you care for a drink?” The man’s words stopped her in her tracks. She blinked, frozen. A drink? Who was he speaking to? He couldn’t possibly be speaking to her, could he? But she was intrigued. She’d never been offered a drink in a moonlit garden before. A drink of what? Yes. Many questions. And there was only one way to get answers. She tiptoed to the edge of the hedge and peered slowly around it.
There he was, tall, dark, and . . . drunk. There was no mistaking it. The man she’d heard had a bottle of some sort of amber-colored alcohol in his hand and was bowing to a stone fountain in the center of which stood a statue of a cherub. She straightened her spine. He hadn’t been speaking to her at all. The man had apparently been addressing his remarks to an inanimate object.
She frowned but peered around the hedge, too fascinated to go. First of all, whoever he was, the man was clearly somehow related to the Greek gods. He was well over six feet tall with a head full of ruffled dark hair, broad shoulders, and powerful legs encased in skin-tight buff-colored breeches. He wore black top boots, a wine-colored waistcoat, and a white shirt. His cravat was askew and when he straightened to his full height—having obviously been rebuffed by his speechless cherub friend—he towered over the fountain exactly as if he’d flown down from Olympus. Prudence had only seen an inebriated person a couple of times in her life. One poor soul had been a street vendor who’d loudly informed her that her beauty rivaled that of the violets he was attempting to sell her. Her mother had quickly ushered her and her sisters into the nearest shop to avoid the man while mumbling, “Shameless drunkard,” under her breath. Then there had been the odd time at social events when Pru had been convinced that an overly-eager suitor had imbibed more than was appropriate when he’d been a bit too free with his hands whilst dancing. But neither of those experiences were anything like this. Adonis here was clearly drunk as a wheelbarrow as Clayton would say. Even now as she contrived to peer at the man, he stumbled into the hedge before catching himself and righting his footing. Yes, most certainly drunk. Either that or he was as clumsy as she and somehow she doubted that.
He was smoking a cheroot and the scent of the thing filled the air. He dropped it to the ground however and snuffed it with his boot.
“Blast,” he mumbled, and Pru hid her smile behind her gloved hand. He was certainly captivating, this handsome drunkard. He moved then, in an attempt to lurch away from the hedge, but he was immediately pulled backward as if somehow connected to the greenery.
“Damnation!” he cursed. Pru clapped her hands over her ears. Such blasphemy. She should not be subjecting her innocent self to any of this, but for some reason she could not look away. It was as if his poor behavior was a flame, and she the moth. She was drawn to his antics. A moment later she realized Adonis’s coat was snared on a branch. He was stuck in the hedge. He tried to pull himself free again. His second attempt was met with the sound of fabric ripping. Pru winced. Apparently, rip or no, the problem was not solved. An unexpected deep chuckle followed. “I seem to find myself stuck in the hedge, good sir,” he announced via slurred speech to the cherub.
“The statue cannot help you, but perhaps I can.” Moments ticked by before Pru acknowledged the fact that she had been the one to utter those words.
Adonis’s head snapped sharply toward her direction, and he squinted but he obviously couldn’t make out her identity in the darkness. “Who’s there?” he called. “A rescuer?”
“It’s possible,” she called back, impressed with her own forwardness. Mama would be horrified if she knew her eldest daughter was out here in the garden trading words that might well be described as banter with an inebriated god.
“Then, show yourself and please commence the rescue,” Adonis replied, pointing toward his back with his thumb. He tugged again and while more fabric ripped, he remained snared.
Pru tentatively took a step forward onto the graveled path that led around the hedge. Her heartbeat increased with each step, and she had the thought that freeing him might well be akin to freeing a wild beast. But she couldn’t very well turn away and leave him stranded here with his coat caught in a hedge. What if it began to rain, for instance? The thought made her giggle again.
“Laughing at my plight, milady?” Adonis asked in a mock-angry voice while covering his heart with his free hand. The other hand continued to clutch the bottle of amber liquid.
“No, my lord. I certainly am not.”
“Alas,” he replied, his face falling slightly. “I cannot claim such loftiness. I am no lord.”
A streak of disappointment shot through Pru’s chest. Why had she thought he was titled? And why did it matter? He’d called her milady, and she’d just assumed . . . But of course a true gentleman, one raised properly in the ton, wouldn’t be cursing and drunken in the garde
ns. Though this man almost certainly was a guest and moreover was dressed as a gentleman.
“Who are you then?” Pru heard herself ask next.
“Free me, my lady, and I shall repay you with my name.”
She inched closer, not entirely sure it was safe. She crossed her arms over her chest finally coming to stand directly in front of him in a pool of moonlight. “What if I request my payment before I render my assistance?”
Who was saying these words? Certainly not Prudence Carmichael, the epitome of prudence. It seemed ever so akin to flirtation and that wasn’t like her. Not at all. That was more Winnie’s province.
“Ah, a bargainer. I have great respect for a proper bargain.” His words came to a halt as soon as his gaze, which had begun at her silver-slippered feet, finally reached her face. “Good God, you are breath-taking.”
Pru’s cheeks heated and she took a step back, but she could not help the inexplicable warmth that traveled through her limbs at his words.
“No!” he said. “Don’t go.”
Pru stopped but continued to watch him warily.
“I apologize if I’ve offended you, my lady.” He did his best to give an awkward half-bow, which merely resulted in an additional ripping noise. “As you can see, I am at your mercy.”
Another bolt of heat shot through Pru’s entire body but for an entirely different reason this time. The idea of this large, virile man being entirely at her mercy. It was preposterous, it was ludicrous, it was . . . captivating. But it was also frightening. She glanced back over her shoulder in the direction of the house. She must remember who and where she was. No good could come of tarrying here much longer. She stepped around him and by the light of the nearest candle blinking from the stone wall above them, she assessed the relationship between his jacket and the hedge. A branch had caught under the bottom of his coat when he stumbled and was now making its way directly up the seam in the back of the garment. Each time he’d moved, he’d caused additional damage.
A Very Matchmaker Christmas Page 28