To Charm a Naughty Countess

by Theresa Romain

  Michael struggled through conversation with Miss Weatherby and her mother, returning to Lancashire whenever topics flagged. He could not tell whether they were truly interested or just being polite. It didn’t matter; it was a comfort to talk of the land he loved so well, where he seemed to have left such a large part of himself.

  When dessert was served, Lady Tallant apologized over the fare. “Our cook couldn’t find any fruit today for love or money, and she assured me she tried both. At least the cold weather permits the transport of ices, or we should have to content ourselves with chewing on the candles.”

  Lady Tallant atoned for the lack of fruits by offering her guests an assortment of sweetened ices from the ever-fashionable Gunter’s, located not far from Tallant House in Berkeley Square. Her husband at once took a large serving and spooned the frozen confection into his mouth with the glee of a child.

  Michael accepted a delicate pink ice, which he realized to his dismay was flavored with rosewater. He consumed it in small bites, nodding in response to whatever Miss Weatherby happened to exclaim over in her kittenish voice. And thinking.

  So, there was no fruit for a countess in London. A subtle reminder of the famine wracking so much of Europe in this cold year. England had been more lightly gripped by hunger, but it was a small solace—and a small agony—to know that even the richest nobles in the nation’s greatest city felt the chill of unnatural winter too.

  The meal at last completed, Michael endured another round of distracted nodding as the men chatted over port until Lord Tallant deemed it appropriate to rejoin the ladies. Michael followed the other men into the drawing room, wondering if he could pen a letter to his steward. Surely Tallant had a writing desk somewhere. Michael hadn’t written to Sanders for an entire day, and he kept thinking of new things he wanted to tell the man. Sanders might not remember which tenants’ roofs needed repair, and he would have no idea from where to order materials.

  Michael’s fault, perhaps. Over the years, he had tugged charge after charge from his steward’s control. But it was necessary to make sure everything went perfectly, as he sought to undo the damage his father had wrought. Michael trusted no one as much as he trusted himself.

  “Your Grace? Would you care to make up a hand of whist?” Lady Tallant asked. “Do say yes, or I shall have to partner my husband, and he has the most abominable memory. I shall be impoverished if I am forced to rely on him.”

  Lord Tallant’s mild countenance looked wounded. “Em, I always replace the pin money you lose.”

  “True, and that’s very dear of you, Jemmy. Though as there are only four suits, one would think you could recall which was trump.”

  “We could try writing it down,” the earl suggested. “I’m sure I could remember it if I could only look at a note.”

  Michael seized the opening. “Do you have paper and pen here? Allow me, Tallant.”

  “But, Your Grace, surely you would prefer a game?”

  “Call me Wyverne, please,” Michael said. “There is no need for greater ceremony. And I would be delighted to encourage harmony between husband and wife. You might write down the suit; then there’s a letter I’d like to dash off.”

  That sounded almost carefree. In truth, he felt almost carefree. The prospect of disgorging a list of responsibilities onto paper was calming him. His fingers twitched not from tension but from eagerness to hold a pen.

  After giving Lady Tallant pen and paper, which she used to inscribe the word hearts and slide it in front of her husband’s fistful of cards, Michael retrieved the writing implements and returned to a desk at one side of the capacious drawing room.

  At once, his tangled thoughts began to flow as smoothly as ink from his pen.

  First, there were the tenants’ roofs to mind; then he wanted a report on the weather: temperature, snowfall, rainfall, everything. And on the state of the harvest, such as it was. Ordinarily the flax would be stretching tall in the fields now; this year, the plants were stunted by frost and starved for sun. With few crops to harvest and sell, Michael would have to buy food to help his tenants through the lean months. Unless, miraculously, the winter relaxed its grip.

  Michael was past hoping for a miracle, which meant he had yet another reason to strike up a flirtation with Miss Weatherby.

  He bent over his paper, shutting out that thought, the other guests, the room, London. He thought only of what needed to be done in his absence from Lancashire, scribbling lists and questions and reminders. Since Michael had come to London, he had heard from Sanders distressingly seldom. Only often enough to be told that, since Michael had come to London, Sanders was no longer dogged by the dukedom’s creditors.

  If Michael had lost their faith through his supposed madness, he was regaining it now by joining in the season. Incontrovertible evidence in favor of his sanity.

  He signed his name with more than usual force.

  The letter done, his awareness expanded again—out from the paper before him, back to the drawing room of Tallant House, lamplit against the night, its gilt wallpaper burnished and quietly rich. The soft carpet and furnishings blunted the laughter of the card players.

  And then there was Caroline, who stood near a wide fireplace with a painted glass screen. She was talking to that tall young man again. A Baron Hart, if Michael remembered correctly. Hart had fashionably tousled dark hair and a languid, confident bearing. He looked at ease. He looked like he belonged with Caroline.

  And apparently Michael belonged by himself. Letter complete, there was nothing for him to do but meander around the edges of the drawing room.

  He ought to make his way toward Miss Weatherby to advance his suit. Though how much more the young lady ought to be expected to hear about Lancashire, he couldn’t guess.

  For the moment, she was still playing cards. Her soft features looked gentle and pliant in the forgiving lamplight. Once she chose her next card, her eyes found Michael, and her lips trembled before her gaze returned to her cards again.

  Was that a look of excitement or of apprehension? Was the offer of a dukedom not enough when it came tied to a duke’s hand in marriage? To his hand?

  His head pounded in the rhythm of these words. His dinner became uneasy in his stomach. The chicken fricassee pecked and fluttered at his insides; the beef pounded at him with heavy hooves. He swallowed hard.

  He needed a trick to distract himself. He could master his body by waking his mind. Pulling in deep breaths through his nose, he looked around the room. The usual litter of amusements: books, newspapers, periodicals, a pianoforte.

  And on it, a lamp.

  A Carcel lamp.

  He squinted at it to make sure he was not mistaken. Yes, so it was: the glass globe sat atop a sturdy bronze base, its reservoir of fuel tucked away, hidden.

  His dinner became food again, and his head ceased its pounding meter. A Carcel lamp. Marvelous.

  He had wanted one for years, but they were hard to come by. Lancashire shops refused to carry them because they were so delicate and complex, and every lamp Michael had ordered from London had arrived broken. They had an ingenious clockwork mechanism in the base, a pump that forced oil up into the wick. A great improvement over the old Argands that still cast their shadow-marred, top-heavy lights in every room of Callows, his Lancashire seat.

  He could have fixed the shipments of Carcels, of course, if he had ever examined an unbroken one and understood how their delicate inner workings fit together.

  Hmm.

  Like a moth, he was pulled to the light of the lamp. He removed its globe-shaped shade, forgetting everything except the hot little flame at his fingertips.

  Six

  “What is Wyverne doing here, Caro?”

  A fashionable dandy Hart might be, but Caroline had always known his tousled hair covered a head with no lack of sense. In this way, he resembled Michael more than any other man-ab
out-town Caroline had met.

  Her eyes turned to Michael himself, who sat at a writing desk. As she watched, he tapped the feathered barb of a pen against his paper, then began scribbling again at a furious rate. Likely that flecks of ink were spattering his cravat and the lovely malachite-green silk of his waistcoat. Likelier still he would neither notice nor care.

  She looked back to Hart. He deserved better than this constant comparison with another.

  “He is here at my request,” she replied at last. “I am helping him.”

  “To what end?”

  “To the end that preoccupies everyone in society: money. I am helping him find a rich wife.” A small incline of her head toward Miss Weatherby. “What do you think of my choice?”

  Hart shook his head. “Considering she’s chosen to partner her mother at cards rather than approach Mad Michael, I’d say she’s not amenable.”

  Mad Michael. Caroline had forgotten this old nickname for the Duke of Wyverne. If the ton still bandied it about, his rehabilitation might be more difficult than she had expected.

  She adopted a careless tone. “I think it’s gone rather well so far. I do not expect him to seek a special license right away or to drop to one knee and profess his love tonight. But see how she looks to him every time her attention is freed from her cards? She is intrigued.”

  “Either that or she’s wondering what kind of madman comes to a dinner party only to catch up on his correspondence.”

  “A busy man. He oversees a dukedom even while he’s in London.”

  Hart raised a curious brow. “I have a country estate, and you don’t see me dragging my tedious affairs around with me. I know how to amuse myself, and others.”

  Unmistakable hint. Caroline ignored it. “Maybe so, Hart, but you’ve lived differently from Wyverne. He prefers to grip his holdings tightly.”

  “Yet they are now in danger of slipping from his grasp.”

  Caroline nibbled at her lip, a pensive gesture that drew attention to its fullness. “Yes, true. I cannot fathom how it’s happened.”

  This was no exaggeration. How was it that Michael faced ruin when he kept a vigilant watch on his estates? When his care for them occupied his every waking moment and probably robbed him of sleep? How, too, could men such as Hart stay solvent when they gave more attention to the tailoring of their coats in a week than to the management of their holdings in a year?

  Perhaps nothing but the everlasting winter had changed Michael’s plans. Or perhaps it was something deeper within Michael—that unique quality the world stamped and sealed mad.

  Where he was concerned, she kept running into that wall of incomprehension. She would not break through it with Hart, so she turned resolutely away to a subject she knew quite well.

  “What do you think of my gown, Hart? The modiste told me this shade was all the rage.”

  “Coquelicot, is it not?” Hart smiled. “Isn’t that the color on everyone’s lips today?”

  “Ah, so you heard about my promised carnation. I hope it will have a pleasant scent. I find the natural perfume of a flower intoxicating.”

  She felt weary—or worse, wearisome—as she said this. Flirtatious words fell heavily as stones from her tongue tonight, though Hart looked gratified enough.

  “If it is worthy of you, then it will be intoxicating indeed.” He lowered his voice. “May I call on you tonight?”

  She mulled over the request. The idea of using Hart for her own pleasure did not appeal to her; it had not for some weeks. “Not tonight. I have too many things to plan.”

  This mitigated his disappointment by a fraction. “Do you? Are you preparing for a party?”

  “Not at present. I am scheming strategies to advance the suit of my ward.”

  “Your ward?” His brows knit until Caroline nodded at Michael, who was still scribbling away at his letter. “Oh. Wyverne.” Hart gave her an odd look. “He’s a duke, Caro, and quite mad. He doesn’t need your help, and he won’t notice or care if he doesn’t get it.”

  He grinned as though this was all rather funny, but Caroline went cold all over. He doesn’t need your help.

  Hart thought so. Maybe everyone thought so. It was what she feared most: that she was useless.

  Oh, men wanted her money. They coveted her body. Women envied her prestige. But Caroline herself, the woman beneath the lacquered surface? No one needed her at all.

  And if Hart was right, Michael had as little concern for her as he would a splotch of ink on his waistcoat. Just as he had eleven years before.

  He was certainly heedless of her efforts on his behalf. Still he worked on his letter, ignoring Miss Weatherby, slicing away at his chance of success with every stroke of his pen.

  “He is not mad, Hart,” Caroline said with determined calm. “Only unique. And someone has to help him.”

  “If you insist.” Hart still looked skeptical. “But why need that someone be you, Caro? No one expects that of you.”

  “Maybe that’s why I want to be the one,” she murmured. She smoothed the coquelicot taffeta of her dress.

  Coquelicot. Not merely red; never such an everyday color as that. She had trained herself to think in intricacies of form and dress, and she could not stop now. It was foolish to wish to be more than lovely, wealthy Lady Stratton—especially when she had once been so much less.

  She didn’t realize Hart had heard her until he repeated her words. “You want to be the one.”

  “Never mind, Hart.” She tilted her chin down so the lamplight would shadow her cheekbones, make her eyes deep and mysterious. Hart usually found the effect distracting in quite a nice way.

  Not this time. “No, no. You merely surprised me, Caro. I didn’t expect… well. I understand. I hope to see you again soon, one way or another.”

  With a bow, he left her. He walked over to the velvet-covered card table and whispered in Lady Tallant’s ear. Something quite roguish, apparently, for Emily laughed and waved a slip of paper at Hart.

  “Just because it’s your name doesn’t mean it’s your property. All hearts are not your possession. This paper is a reminder for Jemmy.”

  “Dash it,” said the earl, making a grab for the paper. “Leave it on the table, Hart. Em and I are up by seven pounds.”

  Caroline smiled. The earl’s abysmal memory for card play was surpassed only by his unflagging good humor.

  On another evening, she would have joined the small group at the card table, perhaps finding someone to flirt with, soaking up compliments until she stopped feeling quite so empty.

  That last thing Hart had said—that I didn’t expect—nagged at her. What did he mean? Had she grown so predictable, living in the tight little box of her Albemarle Street house, seeing the same people all the time? Spending her days with fashion and flowers and laughter?

  When one had grown up as poor as she, it was difficult to get enough of such luxury. But maybe her decorative tendencies had become a golden chain, holding her back from accomplishing… well, more. Somehow.

  She blinked. The light had gone dimmer, and Michael was no longer sitting at the writing desk.

  He was standing at the pianoforte, holding a—what was that? It looked like a small metal gear.

  Then she realized: the lovely cast-bronze lamp that had stood on the pianoforte was now lying across its lid. In pieces. And Michael was poking through them with the furtive eagerness of an anatomist, afraid his precious stolen corpse would be taken away at any second.

  Damnation. When she had called him a dratted duke earlier, that was a much milder epithet than he deserved.

  She marched over to him and, without preamble, hissed, “This is no way to convince Miss Weatherby of your sanity.”

  At the sound of her voice, he flinched, startled. The gear slipped from his fingers and pinged off of the etched glass globe.

  Caro
line affixed a pleasant smile over her face, then ventured a look at the card table. Indeed, Miss Weatherby’s pale face was turned in their direction.

  Caroline hoped the young woman continued to be intrigued rather than dismayed, though she could imagine no one but Michael being intrigued by the innards of a lamp.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered, keeping her smile carefully hung in place.

  To her surprise, he smiled back.

  The change in his face was startling. The faint, careworn lines at his eyes became crinkles of joy, and his sharp cheekbones softened with the press of his mouth. His teeth were even, his mouth a delight. This was a revel of happiness, as it could only be felt by a man for whom it was rare.

  And such happiness was over nothing but a damned lamp. He had never chosen to bestow that expression of bliss on Caroline for her own sake.

  “It’s a Carcel lamp,” he said. “Isn’t it marvelous?”

  Her voice was harsher than it might have been had he looked less transfigured. “It might have been once. Now it’s nothing but a pile of rubbish.”

  “I wanted to see how it worked,” he said, as if this were an obvious sentiment. “Look at this gear, right here. It drives the most ingenious clockwork pump. Do you know how a Carcel lamp works?”

  “Of course I do,” Caroline lied. “Keep your voice down. Miss Weatherby is watching.”

  Michael seemed not to hear her. “I haven’t been able to get one of these in Lancashire, and I’ve always wondered how the pump operates. See how it drives the oil upward? That way, you needn’t have a heavy oil reservoir above the light itself.” He smiled again. “Thank you for bringing me tonight. This is a genuine pleasure.”

  Caroline choked. Michael ignored every fatted calf the ton could offer and instead glutted himself on lamp oil.

  She really shouldn’t be surprised. “I’m delighted to have fulfilled the first day of our contract to your satisfaction. But you must put the lamp back together and quickly. Can you?”