Nicola Cornick Collection

by Nicola Cornick

  “Mr. Brooke is not my lover.” Tess’s gaze was very direct. It challenged him to disbelieve her. “I do not have a lover nor do I intend to take one. I’ve never—” She stopped and bit off what she was about to say. She looked away, colour stinging her cheeks.

  “You’ve never had a lover?” Owen queried softly. He was surprised, but then she was a creature of surprises.

  “No. Never.” She sounded annoyed to be caught out in the admission, as though she was revealing too much. Her gaze fell from his, her lashes veiling her expression. “I’ve had three husbands,” she said, after a moment. “Surely that is enough.”

  “Evidently not, since you are seeking a fourth,” Owen said.

  She smiled a little, spreading her hands in another pretty gesture that Owen suspected was completely false. “What can I say? It’s a compulsion.”

  Owen doubted that. Tess Darent seemed far too carefully controlled to fall prey to any kind of compulsion.

  “Is there anything else I should know before I give you an answer?” he asked. It was her opportunity to be honest with him about her political allegiance, her chance to confess to her involvement in the Jupiter Club. He waited, and realised that he was holding his breath.

  He saw the flash of calculation in her eyes and could almost feel her weighing the merits of confession. She caught her lush lower lip between her teeth. She seemed to tremble on the edge of revelation. But then he saw her withdraw behind that cool facade again. Those formidable defences came down. She was shaking her head.

  “There is nothing else, my lord.” She arched a brow. “Is that not enough?”

  It was plenty but it was not the whole truth.

  Owen felt the disappointment like a dull weight. He had wanted Tess to trust him, which was foolish of him, since she had every reason not to do so. He was Sidmouth’s man, bound to hunt down and arrest the wanted criminal Jupiter. Tess would hardly walk straight into his house and confess she was the woman he sought. No, instead she would do precisely what she had done. She would tell him half-truths and compromises, tempt him into marriage with her money and try to use him, to hide from Sidmouth in plain sight.

  He should refuse her proposal, of course. He should, in fact, have her arrested and investigated. But he would not. Tess Darent’s devious and daring game appealed to all his gambling instincts. She had thrown down a challenge. Very well, he would take her on. He would play and he would win.

  He remembered the political cartoons, their visceral power. They were full of anger and passion, the perfect counterpoint to this cool, poised woman sitting before him. He wanted to discover the real Tess Darent, to tear away those layers of cold composure with which she disguised herself, and expose the woman beneath. He wondered if she really would take this challenge as far as the altar—and beyond that into the marriage bed.

  There was only one way to find out.

  He stood up. “Lady Darent.” He gave her an immaculate bow. “I am sensible of the honour that you do me …” Was that not the terminology one used on receiving an offer? Owen grinned. He had no idea.

  “But you are going to refuse me,” Tess said, before he could finish. She jumped to her feet. “Of course. Which is a blessing, I think.” She was smoothing her gloves on and was so transparently anxious to be away that Owen was fascinated. “Because I have changed my mind too. You would not have done for a fashionable husband at all. You are far too …” She broke off.

  Owen was about to correct her misapprehension but he was too amused and curious to do so straight away. So cool, collected Lady Darent had lost her nerve at the last moment. Clearly she was not quite as brazen as she seemed.

  And he was not going to let her off the hook so easily.

  “I am far too what?” he prompted.

  “Too forthright, too forceful, and you ask far too many questions,” Tess said. “It will not do.”

  Owen moved to block her way as she headed for the door.

  “Before you leave,” he said, with deceptive quietness, “please do give me some pointers for the next time I receive a proposal from a lady. How should one respond in a suitably fashionable manner?”

  “With gratitude,” Tess said tartly, “if the lady in question is someone like me.”

  “There is no one like you,” Owen said. “And I accept your proposal, Lady Darent. With gratitude.”

  Her blue gaze was stunned. Her mouth formed a round, silent, astonished O.

  “Unless,” Owen added gently, “you have withdrawn your offer already. In which case I am most disappointed.”

  He watched with interest to see whether, now it came to the point, she had the bravado to go through with it.

  She recovered very quickly.

  “In that case,” she said crisply, “it is agreed.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Owen said drily, “I have made you the happiest of women. Is that not the accustomed response, albeit generally from the man since our roles are reversed?”

  “I would not go so far,” Tess said. “I am grateful to you, Lord Rothbury.”

  “So flattering.”

  “This is business. I do not flatter my business associates.” She pinned him with a look that said she was back in control. Owen found it amusing. He had to smother a smile. In a moment he would take that control and give her a foretaste of what marriage to him might entail.

  “You will send a notification of our engagement to the papers, if you please,” Tess said.

  Owen bowed. “As you wish,” he said. “And I will get a special licence.”

  He was interested to see the panic flowering in her eyes. Evidently she still had reservations about what she was doing.

  “There is no need for haste,” she said.

  “On the contrary,” Owen said, enjoying her discomfiture, “there is every need. Whilst our betrothal will give you a measure of the respectability you seek, it cannot be as effective as our marriage will be.”

  He saw her bite down hard on her lower lip. “Well, I …”

  “And I will call on you tomorrow,” Owen finished, with a great deal of satisfaction.

  A tiny frown wrinkled her brow. “Call on me?”

  “Unless,” Owen said, powerless to prevent the heavy irony that now coloured his voice, “you prefer me simply to send you a note with the wedding date so that you can meet me in church?”

  “Oh …” She smiled deliciously, an echo of the superficially charming Tess Darent who was all pretence. “Yes, that would be extremely helpful of you. As this is a marriage of convenience I don’t think we need see each other a great deal before the ceremony.”

  She started to walk towards the door. Owen took two strides backwards and reached for the handle just before she did. Her body collided with his. She felt warm, soft and yielding; Owen’s senses clouded with the scent of her and the heat of her skin. Desire flowered through him again as fiercely as it had done the previous night. He caught her wrist.

  “I will not be a conformable husband, Lady Darent,” he warned. “You do not issue me with my tasks and expect me to obey without question. I am not reversing the wedding vows along with everything else.”

  Beneath his fingers he could feel her pulse racing. Her glove was no protection against the insistence of his touch.

  They were so close now that she had to tilt her face up in order to meet his gaze. He could read an element of anger in her eyes now, though her tone was still level. “Just as long as you do not expect me to obey you either,” she said.

  “You will be promising to do so in the marriage service,” Owen said. “Or do you pick and choose those vows you honour?”

  He felt her pulse kick up another notch. Something flickered in those blue eyes, something that looked like fear.

  “You seem uncertain,” Owen said silkily. “Would you like to reconsider—cry off before it is too late?”

  There was a moment when he saw a welter of emotion cloud her face before she wiped her expression clear.

  “No
, thank you.” She sounded as cool as though she were placing an order for tea with the footman. “I cannot afford to be too particular. Would you like to withdraw your agreement, my lord?”

  Owen had absolutely no intention of withdrawing.

  “No,” he said. “I will marry you.”

  “So gracious,” she said, in mocking echo of his words earlier.

  Owen tugged on her wrist. One step brought her into his arms. He was astonished to realise that he wanted to kiss her very much. The challenge she presented, the game between them, lit his blood.

  He brought his lips down on hers.

  For a brief second it felt bewitching. She was all heat and light, all sweet fierceness in his arms. Desire exploded within him, sensual darkness enveloped him. He reached out to draw her closer.

  He felt the shock rip through her like lightning. This did not feel like the startled reaction of someone merely taken by surprise by a kiss, but a far more profound response built on something that felt disturbingly like fear. But before Owen could analyse it fully Tess froze, stiller than a hunted mouse, utterly unresponsive, her lips cold and unmoving beneath his, her body as stiff as a corpse in his arms.

  Owen’s ardour died as swiftly as it had been born. He drew back. Tess’s eyes were closed, her lashes a sharp black fan against her cheeks, her lips parted, curls of red-gold hair framing her face. She looked enchanting but lifeless, like the princess in “Sleeping Beauty,” dead to the world and certainly dead to his touch. Owen released her. It was a while since he had kissed anyone and perhaps his technique needed practice but he had never experienced a response, or lack of response, such as this.

  Tess opened her eyes. Their expression was as lifeless as her reaction to him. Owen felt his stomach hollow with something close to despair. If this were a foretaste of his married life, it would be barren indeed. Perhaps he should have taken the opportunity to withdraw his suit a moment ago when he had the chance. Perhaps he should hope that they never got as far as the altar.

  “Good day, Lord Rothbury.” Tess was smoothing her gloves and adjusting the jonquil-coloured cloak, tying the ribbon with fingers that were quite steady. She appeared unmoved. And it seemed she was not going to refer in any way to their kiss. Perhaps that was what passed for an embrace in a fashionable betrothal, Owen thought—a cold acknowledgement of the unemotional tie that now bound them. If that was Tess’s expectation of their engagement and potential marriage, she was going to be extremely shocked.

  He held the door for Tess and she walked out, negotiating the maze of statuary in the hall with elegance and aplomb. She was once again in control, every inch the modish society beauty.

  It was only as the ring of the carriage wheels faded away down the street that Owen realised Tess had never answered his question as to why she had wanted a marriage in name only.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  TESS WAS CAUGHT BETWEEN the devil and the deep blue sea, as her old governess, Miss Finch, had been inclined to say. She could not withdraw her offer for her charges’ sake but she was not at all sure she could go through with her plan to marry Rothbury. He was too forceful, too difficult to control.

  For the second night in a row, she could not sleep. She opened the drawer beside her bed and took out her sketching book and charcoal. As always, the act of drawing soothed her with its clean lines and the soft scratch of the pencil against the paper. She drew a cartoon of the tree of liberty with Lord Sidmouth dressed as a forester, hacking at the trunk. Then she caricatured the scene in the brothel with various peers falling out of their breeches and Mrs. Tong shrieking like a witch and her girls diving for cover as the dragoons trampled all the whips, crops and erotic paraphernalia underfoot. Each smooth sweep of her crayon brought the scene to life, sharp, vivid and full of character.

  With a sigh, she laid the sketches aside, pushing the pad away across the counterpane. She was itching to publish another cartoon. Tomorrow she would slip away to the printers. She knew she had promised herself that the Jupiter Club was finished, but a few more cartoons could not hurt, and she would burst if she were unable to express the feelings she had inside. And after she had been to the printers she supposed she would have to go back to the brothel and confront Mrs. Tong over the missing sketches. She was sure that the bawd, opportunistic as ever, must have taken them, seeing them as a way to extort money from her perhaps. Mrs. Tong had helped her because her son was a firebrand radical, preaching reform. That did not mean, however, that the mercenary bawd owed her any loyalty. That would be foreign to her nature.

  Tess’s shoulders slumped. There were so many complications now. She had become a philanthropist because of her first husband, Robert Barstow, who had inspired her. When he had died she had taken his cause and his money to fight for reform to alleviate poverty and disease, violence and misery. Now she was embroiled in a mire of intrigue.

  She tapped the crayon against the palm of her hand. Common sense suggested that Rothbury knew nothing of the cartoons. Five minutes in his presence this morning had shown her how blunt was his approach. She had never met a more direct man in her life. If Rothbury had found evidence to incriminate her he would surely have confronted her. Yet, though she tried to reassure herself, she could not be certain. She was playing a very dangerous game with him.

  She pulled the sketching pad towards her again. In a few strokes Rothbury’s face came to life on the page, the determined line of his jaw, the slash of his cheekbones, the fall of his hair across his forehead and the cool, direct gaze. Tess gave another little shiver. Rothbury was so very different from Robert Barstow, and from James Darent for that matter.

  She opened the drawer of the nightstand again and her searching fingers closed around the miniature portrait of Robert that she kept by her bed. She could feel the chased silver of the locket, worn almost smooth now after ten years. She always felt an ache of unhappiness when she thought of Robert, even now, so long after his death. Her first husband had never had the chance to be more than an idealistic boy, but he would have grown to be a good man had he lived, the sort of man who had integrity and courage and belief, a man of honour.

  Her gaze fell on the drawing pad again. She wished Rothbury had not kissed her earlier. She pressed her fingers to her lips. For a brief second when he had touched her she had felt a jolt of something fierce and bright, but then she had remembered the past, and the fear and revulsion had swept any sweeter feelings away. It had been that way with every man. Brokeby’s cruelty had damaged her past mending. For a moment though, with Rothbury, she had thought … She gave her head a sharp shake before the thought formed properly. Rothbury was no different. He could not help her, and she was a fool even to wish it.

  She was not sure why he would want to kiss her anyway, except perhaps as a formal way of sealing their betrothal. There could be nothing else for either of them, no love and certainly no physical desire. A cold kernel of misery hardened inside her. She had never known true physical love. Robert had been her best friend but no lover. And after Charles Brokeby, every thought she had had about erotic love had been shadowed by the carnage he had wrought on her.

  She picked up the drawing book and closed it, blotting out Rothbury’s face. Men of honour, in her experience, were few and far between. A pity she had met this particular one when it was far too late for both of them.

  “WHY DIDN’T SHE TELL ME?” Joanna Grant burst into the library and brandished The Morning Post beneath her husband’s nose. “Am I supposed to learn of Tess’s latest betrothal from the newspapers now? She’s marrying Owen! Owen, of all people!” She threw the paper down on the shiny rosewood desk on top of Alex’s estate papers, scattering them to the floor.

  Alex laid down his pen. His grey eyes were very steady. “I am not entirely sure why you are so upset, Joanna.”

  Upset. Yes, she was upset. Joanna was shocked to realise quite how upset she was. Her heart was thumping and she wanted to hit something. Or someone. For a second she felt a violent antipathy towards her
sister. Then she wanted to cry. She sat down so heavily on one of the rosewood chairs that it creaked.

  “Well, I …” Alex’s steady gaze and his cool tone were unnerving her. This was not how she had expected him to react. She had wanted him to understand her indignation.

  “She didn’t tell me,” she said, a little forlornly. She felt hurt that Tess had not confided in her. She had tried endlessly to help her sister. She had reached out to her time and again, encouraging her to open her heart. And Tess had always denied her. They were so close in age, they had shared so much, and yet Joanna felt despairing that they would ever be friends. Tess simply did not allow anyone close enough to be her friend. So yes, she felt hurt. But she also felt betrayed.

  Alex raised one shoulder in a half shrug. “I agree it would have been nicer to hear the news from Tess herself,” he said, “but perhaps she realised that you would react like this.”

  “Like what?” Joanna demanded. The anger was fizzing in her blood.

  “As though it was all about you, not about your sister,” Alex said calmly. “Tess is getting married to an old friend. We should be happy for them both.”

  “I am happy!” Joanna protested, whilst a fat tear rolled down her cheek and splashed onto the carpet. “But it isn’t fair! Owen was supposed to be—”

  She stopped but it was already too late. The expression in Alex’s eyes, already cool, was now icy.

  “Owen was supposed to be—what?” he said. The edge to his voice made her shiver. “In love with you? Do you want to tell Tess that he wanted to marry you first? That she is second best? Perhaps,” Alex said as he shifted on the chair, toying with the quill, turning it over and over between his fingers, “you want to tell Tess she cannot marry Owen because he is your property?”

  Joanna blinked back the tears that stung her throat and blocked her nose. Indignation and a sense of betrayal had been replaced by a chill fear wreathing her heart. Had she meant that? She could not quite see how matters had slid so far, so fast. She had been upset and had not thought to censor what she had said.