To Charm a Naughty Countess

by Theresa Romain

  Too harsh by far. He knew she meant well. But where another woman might have crumpled, she only raised her eyebrows.

  “No, it’s so that you’ll tell me more. Do understand, Michael, my intention is not to make you uncomfortable.” She flashed a grin at him. “That is only an unexpected benefit.”

  Her grin died, and she added, “Only teasing, of course. So touchy, aren’t you? What I mean is that you must trust me, and you must trust your steward, and that will only come through offering each other honesty.”

  “I do not care to trust anyone but myself.”

  “Truly?”

  “Yes.”

  Caroline looked the way Michael had felt when he first saw a Cornish steam engine: fascinated yet a bit appalled by its strangeness. “If so, I don’t wonder you are in financial trouble. Why should bankers trust you if you don’t trust them?”

  “If others choose not to trust me, that is their right, and indeed they are exercising it this year. But I know that I can be trusted. For my part, I lend only to people who rely on me, such as my tenants.”

  “Because they are your responsibility, and therefore in a way the money is still under your control. You really don’t think you trust anyone, do you?” She paused, teeth pulling at the fullness of her lower lip. “Yet I wonder if it has occurred to you that you are trusting me now. And your steward too.”

  “I—” He slammed his mouth shut before he could say something ungracious again. She was right, and he disliked that she knew that. He could not be in two places at once, or live well in two worlds.

  So yes, he had to trust her for now. He had called on her this morning, after all. And he had accepted her help because he could not quite manage to deny himself every part of her.

  Caroline poured out another cup of tea. “I don’t mean to wake your anxiety again.”

  “I am not anxious.”

  She shot him a Look.

  “I’m not. I simply get headaches sometimes.” Damn it. He hadn’t intended to admit that.

  She handed the cup to him. “Drink that. Then tell me about the headaches.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. Everyone gets headaches sometimes.” He felt oafish, blunt fingers cradling an eggshell-thin china cup. Since she was still watching him, he sipped at the tea.

  And sipped again. And again. Before he realized it, he was looking at the dregs in his cup.

  “The warmth is pleasant,” he said to excuse himself. “Thank you.”

  With a knowing smile, she refilled his cup and handed him a plate of biscuits. “Some people get headaches when they forget to eat and drink.”

  “Ridiculous. That’s not why I get headaches.” In less than a minute, his cup and plate were somehow empty.

  Again, Caroline replenished both. “So you’re neither anxious nor hungry. Yet these headaches distract you? Might you be ill?”

  “I’m not ill either. I simply prefer to retain control of my surroundings, because if I do not, I get a headache.”

  She blinked at him.

  “I assure you, it is not due to anxiety.”

  She raised one eyebrow.

  “It’s not. And I do not have a problem.”

  “But you do,” she said. “You need money.”

  “Oh.” With a clatter, he set his cup and plate down. “Yes. True. I do have that problem.”

  “You probably won’t find your future bride until you stop thinking of this time in London as a brief chore to be escaped as soon as possible. A duke can never be completely forgotten by society; at most, he can be contorted in the minds of others.”

  “I know that well enough,” Michael said grimly. “People love to whisper about me.”

  Caroline clapped her hands. “Very good, Michael. Far more ducal than even I expected.”

  “How do you mean?”

  She smiled. “You think everyone is talking about you all the time?”

  He realized how it sounded. “Not talking. Whispering. It’s different.”

  “Fine, then. Whispering. By which I merely mean talking very quietly, but I assume you mean something more sordid.”

  Michael crossed his arms. “Perhaps.”

  “Even if they whisper about you, what does it matter? You outrank them all. You can tell anyone to go to hell anytime.”

  “That would certainly scotch the rumors of my…” He paused, not liking to say madness.

  “Actually,” Caroline interrupted his unfinished sentence, “it might. It would be more in keeping with the behavior expected of a duke than would, say, taking apart a lamp.”

  “Not the lamp again, please,” groaned Michael. “As I can’t undo my dissection, as you called it, I beg you to drop the subject. I promise you that I will never take apart a lamp again, unless it is my possession and in my home.”

  “All right, no more lamps,” she agreed. “Then let us return to the whispering. You think everyone is talking—pardon me, whispering—about you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me ask you this, Michael. If they are whispering about you—which you don’t know for certain, not being a Gypsy prognosticator—could it be for a pleasant reason?”

  “I doubt it. Why would they whisper if so?”

  “Because a lady cannot say aloud, ‘look at the delectable arse on Wyverne.’ But she can whisper it in her friend’s ear. And then they will both look at you. They might even laugh. And it won’t be because they think something is wrong. It will be because they are appreciating your delectable arse.”

  Michael had to smile. “Women don’t talk like that.”

  “But I just did, did I not? I assure you, women do talk like that. And about you. Surely you’ve encountered flirtation before.”

  He had, yes, the last time he’d been in London. He’d been only twenty-one, determined to escape the eccentric reputation that had dogged his youth. Determined, too, to show the world he had nothing in common with his debauched father.

  Then he met Caroline, and he had positively boiled with thwarted lust. Fortunately, Lancashire and eleven years’ more maturity had chilled those urges out of him. He had honed his body into a vehicle for completing the tasks of his dukedom. There was no sense in feeling lust, since he had no intention of acting on it.

  Perhaps this was why he disliked being touched. He did not want anyone to wake his sleeping desire.

  Yet it awoke as he stared at Caroline, spellbound by her calm understanding. It was as seductive as a proposition, this slow exchange of confidences.

  He was separated from her by no more than a few feet, but Michael felt it as a chasm between himself and unknown territory. Like the legend on an old map: Here there be dragons. Yes, there she sat, and his whole being heated at the thought of drawing closer.

  Out of habit, he denied himself. He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “Thank you for your kind words.”

  Caroline pursed her lips. “Certainly. Any time you wish for a compliment on your arse, I will be happy to oblige you.”

  This was sufficiently ridiculous to break the steely tension, giving both of them permission to laugh.

  But Michael’s thoughts were left behind, perilously close to those dragon waters, licking heat over his skin. He was simmering and feared he might boil away, yet he craved the sensation.

  There must be something of the beast within him as well.

  This new type of madness was unlike the eccentricities of which the world suspected him. It was nothing more or less than a letting go, an unlocking of himself. And it was the sweetest terror he had ever known.

  Eight

  “Now that we have dispensed with the subject of your arse, let us discuss your courtship.” Caroline sat up straighter in her chair, making her voice resolutely crisp. “I think we must assume that Miss Weatherby will not be amenable to further attentions
from you.”

  Much better, putting another woman in the room with them.

  Caroline had suspected her plan wouldn’t go smoothly. If Michael hadn’t strewn a lamp across the drawing room of Tallant House, he would no doubt have done something else to complicate his reentry into society. She had counted on unexpected behavior.

  But she had not prepared for untidy emotion—not his and especially not hers.

  Caroline had planned to master her foolish fascination, binding it up tight with her common sense, her money, and her wiles. But it was stronger than she had known. Every time Michael’s forest-dark eyes met hers, the old desire struggled and woke.

  She clamped down on it ruthlessly. “Miss Weatherby may put a flea in her father’s ear about you, and that will not do your financial situation any good.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Are you ready to consider another possibility, then? The second lady I have in mind is Augusta Meredith, an orphan and an heiress, already of age. There will be no intrusive parents when we make her acquaintance. At a ball, I think. You can ask her to dance.”

  As she nattered on, buttering over her rebellious feelings with everyday words, she marked a change in him. His shoulders grew stiff, and the corners of his mouth pulled tight. He looked like a man turned to stone. What was the word for that? Oh, yes. Petrified.

  She broke off in the middle of a sentence about Miss Meredith. “What on earth is the matter, Michael?”

  “I don’t care for your society type of ball.”

  She should have realized that a man ill at ease with touch would not care for the press of crowds or the din of voices. “Ah. That’s why you were out on the terrace at Applewood House. You were escaping.”

  He pressed at his temple with the heel of one hand. “I was enjoying the weather.”

  “Rubbish,” said Caroline. “No one’s enjoying the weather this year, especially not you. Very well, let me consider this. Because you will have to take part in society if you are ever to be accepted by it.”

  She fiddled with the bugled trim that adorned the skirt of her gown. Michael swallowed heavily, watching her fingers.

  “All right,” she decided. “We’ll figure this out using one of your scientific methods, as we did with the whispering.”

  “You didn’t figure out anything related to the whispering. You only said something coarse to amuse me.”

  Coarse? He had no idea. But she only smiled as though he’d caught her in a pleasant little trick. “If you were amused, then I am delighted. But let us call it a hypothesis too. That sounds like something you might enjoy. You do enjoy dealing in hypotheses, do you not?”

  He inclined his head, giving her permission to continue.

  “My hypothesis, Michael, is that when people whisper about you, it is because they are either admiring you or are intimidated by you. They hope, yet fear, that you will take notice of them. A word from you, a few minutes at your side, can give them a memory to feast upon for long days ahead.”

  Thus she revealed her long-ago self to him, cloaking it in wrong pronouns and false hypotheticals. Though her memories had held their sweetness only for a short time, they had long since grown stale. She was determined not to let them become bitter, though. She had gained too much to dwell on that old loss.

  And it was sweet again to have him watch her so intently. “That is what you truly think?” His lips pressed together; his dark lashes shadowed his cheekbones with every blink.

  She ached to take away the pressure and the shadows, to learn every angle of his body and mind. Like a Carcel lamp, he was constructed in a unique and intricate way that few people could understand.

  Caroline was trying, though, and she was determined to succeed. She could never understand a lamp, as Michael did, or calculate the volume of earth to be removed to make an effective canal. But she had pierced her own heart long ago, and she knew how people worked.

  She understood the need cloaked by Michael’s deep eyes: he craved help, though he would never ask for it. He was a man, and a duke, and he was unimaginably proud—three reasons to keep that wall around himself.

  She took metaphorical chisel in hand. “The next time we go to a ball together, Michael, task yourself with noticing the way people act. If their eyes crinkle at the corners, they are pleased. If they laugh, they are likely still more pleased. Only if they turn their bodies away from you need you suspect a snub.”

  “We, you said. You will accompany me, then? To the next ball I attend?”

  Her stomach squirmed. “I can, since it is in pursuit of your goal. We shall call it the second event of our contract, and if all goes well with Miss Meredith, perhaps it will be the last we need.”

  She gave him precisely two seconds to digest this information: long enough for the words to soak in, but insufficient for a reply. “You now have a means of analyzing human behavior at a ball. We have already disposed of the question of whispering. You will add it to your quiver of testable hypotheses. Is there anything else?”

  He shifted in his chair; through the thin knit of his trousers, she could see the long muscles flexing in his thighs. Half rising, he shot a look at her and lowered himself back into his chair.

  “Stand if you must,” Caroline said. “I can conduct a conversation just as well if you are on your feet as off them.”

  A sideways glance. “You will not think me impolite if I pace?”

  “Pacing is one of the least impolite things you have done since we renewed our acquaintance,” Caroline assured him. “Please proceed. My carpet is quite comfortable to the foot.”

  Michael’s mouth twitched. He stood, walked to the window, then back to the door. Each time he crossed, he picked up speed. When he fell into a step as regular as the tick of a clock, he finally spoke.

  “I dislike the conversation that must be made with people one does not know.” His voice was clipped off with every step he took.

  “How can that be? You carried on at great length with the Weatherby women.”

  His steady stride broke, and his gaze found hers. “You were with me.”

  Her mouth dropped open; she slammed it shut. He had admitted something astounding: that he had needed her.

  How precious, to be needed for something beyond the selection of a fabric, a pleasant afternoon call, a luscious night. For something far more valuable than all her wealth. For herself.

  You were with me, he said, and it mattered to him. Delight bloomed within her.

  She covered it up. Let it rest, hidden, alongside her old desire for him. Instead, she returned to the scientific language he favored. “What I said to the Weatherbys was commonplace enough, Michael. You could certainly duplicate the results.”

  “I doubt I will always find occasion to speak about Lancashire.”

  “Maybe not to begin with.” She looked over her neglected teacup, her plate of untouched biscuits, and crumbled one as she thought. “One often starts a conversation by commenting on the weather or the dinner or some common point of experience. Once the first reserve has been breached, you may find additional points in common or make a remark that is sure to interest others. This makes others feel comfortable, which allows them to enjoy your company.”

  Until she spoke, she had not realized how many interactions each day could be reduced to such interchanges: the greasing of social wheels, the reassurance of everyday topics of conversation. So much that was almost scripted in its regularity. She could certainly teach this method to Michael.

  And thank God, that meant she was needed, just for now. There was more pleasure in that than in receiving a roomful of suitors who sought only to get inside her purse or her skirts.

  Michael was different from other men; she had always known that. Without even trying, he was twining himself through her mind. He would breach her heart too, if she let him.

  But he had no use
for a heart, so she would not allow him close to hers. No, she would permit every other liberty before she would permit that.

  ***

  Michael had never thought of conversation in terms of discrete tests and tasks. The idea was intriguing.

  “Simple as that, you say. One should talk of the weather and then identify something in common.” He blew out a deep breath, then returned to his seat. “Let us test it out.”

  “What would you say, then, if I should ask you about the weather?”

  Michael narrowed his eyes at Caroline. There was nothing in her question that could be tested. “I would ask you if you had looked outside lately. That is where the weather is always to be found.”

  She smothered a laugh. “It’s not a literal question, and that is not a polite reply. But I’ll ask it of you differently. What do you think of the weather?”

  Better. There was room to supply information here. “I think it is unusually cold for this time of year, though less so than in Lancashire. Perhaps the fog helps hold heat in to the City.” An idea ribboned through his mind. “Caro. Has anyone has ever recorded the relationship between the temperature and fog density? It bears further study, I am sure.”

  Caroline held up a hand. “Michael. Stop. I have no idea whether anyone has cataloged the… whatever you said. And neither will anyone else. If someone asks you what you think of the weather, they do not expect a detailed discussion of temperature. Simply say something like, ‘Deuced cold, isn’t it?’ That’s all.”

  “But that’s a meaningless answer.”

  “It’s not meant to provide information. It’s meant to reassure the other person that you are of his class, of sound mind, and reasonably pleasant to be around. From such reassurance comes social success. Now, try again.” She lowered her voice to resemble a masculine rumble. “Rotten weather, what?”

  Michael parroted, “Deuced cold, isn’t it?” Even as Caroline smiled, he shook his head. “That might work as a semblance of a greeting, but I can’t simply repeat that all day. And what if the weather should warm?”

  “Then you say, ‘Deuced warm, isn’t it?’ I should have thought that would be obvious.” She gnawed on her lip; the gesture made him shiver. Deuced warm. “But you are right, it’s only the first step. And it must feel natural, or you’ll sound as though you’re speaking a part on the stage—and badly. Can you give me a brief version of what you said before? About the cold or the fog?”