To Charm a Naughty Countess

by Theresa Romain

  She thought she heard him chuckle.

  From that point, the guests were enthralled. They gobbled up every sight Michael showed them—the bright and horrid wonders of his shifting slides; scenes of London parks; reproductions of famous paintings. Anything, it seemed, could be painted onto glass, and a magic lantern was indeed enchanting in its ability to transform a dark room into a feast for the eyes.

  And Michael was quite as wondrous. Under the cover of darkness, he was bright, happy in their enjoyment, full of answers. His enthusiasm buoyed them all, convinced them that here was the most marvelous invention since… well, since the Carcel lamp.

  For Caroline, though, the pleasure of the evening was not simply a reaction to the slides. She had never felt such sweet pain and aching want, and she could not put a name to it. She imagined it must be what a parent felt when a grown child married and moved away. As if one’s abiding purpose had been fulfilled, and all that was left was—well, what now?

  She forced out another peal of laughter as Michael changed the slides, showing them a rat scuttling in and out of the mouth of a snoring man. Clever, if rather repulsive.

  Her laughter subsided when she saw, in the nimbus of the magic lantern’s lamp, the confident way in which Miss Cartwright held out the next slide and Michael took it from her. Such delight, such single-minded focus dwelled in his smile that surely Miss Cartwright would be pierced to the heart. Caroline was, and the arrow had not even been directed at her.

  She felt a detached sort of marvel at the meeting of minds between Michael and Miss Cartwright. Her own frippery interests seemed slight and delicate in comparison. At last, Caroline had served him well—too well for her own good. She had served her purpose, and she’d returned to being ornamental.

  The fortunate thing about being ornamental was that the surface always looked lovely, even when everything beneath was in complete confusion.

  What she saw now was that he was quite capable on his own. Freed from the strictures of London, his alleged madness shone with brilliance. Eccentric brilliance, true, but wondrous in this dukedom that held scope for his dreams.

  Folly winked at her from the lighted rectangle on the drawing room wall. He didn’t need her after all. And sorry as she was for herself, yet a tiny part of her managed to be glad for him.

  ***

  Hidden in the umbra of the magic lantern, Michael thanked the Lord for the cloak of darkness. He slid a finger under the edge of his starched cravat, which as usual felt as though it was choking him. He wondered if this was how stage players felt when they began a new show: the roiling anguish of uncertainty, the tingling excitement of anticipation.

  Fortunately, Miss Cartwright was quite a helpful young lady. She understood the mechanics of a magic lantern, and she handed him a new slide every time he grew distracted.

  Much as he had dreaded the arrival of a houseful of Londoners, he had welcomed it too, as his only chance to pull Caroline back into his orbit. No need now to explain or apologize for what had happened the last time they’d met. They were on new ground now. Maybe they could begin afresh. At least he could prove to her that he was more than he’d seemed in London.

  Even in the dark, he could find her; he knew the shape of her body as no other in the world. She laughed at the light on the wall, heedless of his need.

  She usually saw people so clearly; had she seen, then, how he struggled through dinner? How everything he dared say had been rehearsed into woodenness? How often his eyes had turned to her, seeking a cue from the other end of the table?

  What pleases people?

  She always knew the answer. For him, most of all.

  Seventeen

  The following morning, Michael was again nowhere to be found. A quiet regiment of servants directed the ladies to appropriate indoor pursuits—reading, writing letters, plunking on decrepit musical instruments—while the male guests ventured out into the bracing wind in search of horses to ride or animals to shoot.

  In the drawing room that had witnessed last night’s phantasmagoria, Miss Cartwright tinkered with the magic lantern and examined Michael’s collection of glass slides. Caroline tried to regard this as a marker of her own impeccable judgment, that Miss Cartwright was so drawn to an activity that pleased Michael.

  Caroline sat a few feet away in a cane-backed fauteuil of rosewood; next to her, Emily, Lady Tallant, stretched out on a claw-footed chaise longue. Its striped silk upholstery looked dim and worn next to the vibrant yellow of Emily’s gown, the startling jet of its trim.

  “You look lovely this morning, Emily.”

  Emily shot her the kind of wry look that could only be mastered by the oldest and truest of friends. With one single lift of an eyebrow, Emily communicated I acknowledge the compliment, but I know there’s something else on your mind that’s completely unrelated to what you just said.

  All she said aloud was, “Thank you, Caro. You do too.”

  Caroline shook her head, smiling. You’re right, but I can’t tell you anything in front of Miss Cartwright.

  She knew she was not looking her best. Her maid, Millie, had arranged Caroline’s hair with unusual care, but there was no help for skin sallow from poor sleep and the jarring of a long carriage ride over a poor road. Given another day, though, she would shake it off. Surely.

  Emily pushed herself up to a seated position. “Well, I’ve lazed about long enough. Shall we go poking around the rest of the house, Caro?”

  “Certainly,” Caroline agreed. “Miss Cartwright, would you care to join us?” As she’d expected, that young lady declined in favor of further examination of the optical toy.

  Caroline and Emily ventured into the corridor and looked up and down its length. It was paneled in dark reeded oak, carpeted in a worn buff-and-green knotted rug that must have once been thick and costly as an ermine pelt. To Caroline, it looked warm and timeless, magnificent and neglected.

  She had not been in a stately country house such as this since the death of her husband, the Earl of Stratton, who had whiled away his twilight years at his ancestral home in Somersetshire. Faillard Crest was a smaller, newer home than Callows, and far more fashionable; Caroline had seen to that. But Callows had a grandeur that the Crest had lacked: it was steeped in history, built for the ages. Like Michael himself, it was heedless of expectations. It simply carried on as it wished, as it always had.

  “Let’s try this door.” Caroline opened one at random. She found herself in a small, bright chamber wallpapered in a dizzying red-grounded Chinese print. Needlework furniture covers in the style of a few decades past proclaimed this a sitting room probably favored by the late duchess, Michael’s mother.

  Gingerly, Caroline lowered herself onto a spindly chair of worn gilt wood. Its embroidered squab cushion sighed a frail protest, then pressed as flat beneath her as though she outweighed an elephant.

  “Well, that’s lovely,” she muttered, hopping to her feet again.

  Emily laughed and found a chaise to stretch out on, its cover all swirling dark embroidery and fragile old lace. “Lovely’s not the word I had in mind for this room, Caro.”

  “It has potential.”

  “In the right hands, yes.” Emily raised one of her annoyingly mobile dark brows. “Whose hands do you think those will be?”

  “They’ll never be any hands but those of a maid caretaking a museum if Wyverne doesn’t deign to show himself at his own house party,” Caroline said with asperity. “After all I’ve done to help him, the man can’t even be found.”

  “Need he be available at every moment?”

  “Not all, but at some moments.” Caroline waved an impatient hand. “I could slap him for his carelessness of manners, except that such an ill-bred gesture would undermine my point.”

  “His not making an appearance this morning, you mean?” At Caroline’s nod, Emily shrugged. “I don’t mind, and I doubt
anyone else does, either. After all, it’s a novelty to be hosted by Mad Michael, and we hardly expected cucumber sandwiches and lawn tennis. I thought the phantasmagoria was rather brilliant.”

  Caroline’s chest hitched, and she began to pace around the room, fingers dancing over the backs of Norman-style chairs that looked old enough to have been carved by William the Conqueror himself. “Yes, it was an excellent evening’s entertainment. But what has he done today? I can only presume he means to carry on as usual, even though he has a houseful of guests. He’ll tramp about his lands and pore through account books with his steward.”

  Emily tapped her chin with a graceful forefinger. “Do you know, Caro, I think you sound a bit petulant.”

  “I do not.” Caroline sank again into the chair that had protested her weight. She passed a hand over her face. “Oh, damnation, Emily. I do, don’t I?”

  “It’s quite all right with me, though if you complain to His Grace, he’ll have no idea what you’re protesting.”

  “It’s very clear what I’m protesting. I’m protesting his negligence of his guests.”

  “Guests that you invited, Caro. This house party was your doing.”

  Caroline was beginning to wonder why she had wanted to talk to Emily this morning. Her friend was completely lacking in the righteous indignation she ought to feel on Caroline’s behalf. “It wasn’t precisely my doing. That is, I arranged it, but it’s to benefit him. To find him a wife.”

  “Miss Cartwright.”

  “That’s who I intend for him, yes.”

  Emily blinked at Caroline. “And whom does he intend for himself?”

  A pulse of futile, longing heat trembled up and down her body. “He’ll follow my guidance. He’s never thought about what he wants, Emily. He just bumbles around in a fog of responsibility, only coming up to grasp for money.”

  “Bumbling around in a fog? You make him sound as doddering as Lord Kettleburn. Why on earth should Miss Cartwright want such a man?”

  Caroline’s throat wanted to close, but she forced out the words. “Miss Cartwright is, I believe, much the same way. Perhaps not in the utter lack of introspection”—she pulled a deep breath in through her nose, willing herself calm—“but certainly in the logic and responsibility. I think she will be satisfied to exchange her money for his title.”

  “There is to be nothing more to their marriage, then?”

  “Probably not,” Caroline replied, her voice growing faint.

  Emily picked at an ancient lace doily on the arm of her chaise. “If his marriage is to be nothing but a transaction, what need has he of your help? He could better make use of a solicitor than a matchmaker, it seems.”

  “I was more than a matchmaker,” Caroline murmured.

  Emily looked up sharply for an instant, then dropped her gaze back to the doily and studied it with feigned interest. “I see.”

  “I doubt it.” Caroline sighed. “Emily, you remember what happened eleven years ago, and what a fool I made of myself over him. I fear I’m doing the same again.”

  “You were young, and he was handsome. There was nothing so foolish about desiring him. Or do you mean you’ve fallen in lo—”

  “No. I couldn’t allow it.” Too fast she had blurted the words, and they sounded unconvincing even to her own ears. “Yet I meant well when I thought up this plan. This house party. I wanted to help him. And for myself—I wanted to be needed, even if for nothing but finding him a wife.”

  The countess teased free a strand of lace and met Caroline’s eyes with the look only the truest of friends could master: sympathy without the slightest shred of pity. “That’s cold comfort, to be wanted for the sake of another woman.”

  “Even cold comfort is better than no comfort at all.”

  Which was what she had now. Only a moment of lust had drawn him to her body, but now it had passed. Even if Caroline succeeded in matchmaking for Michael, she would end up alone.

  This did not bear thinking of. She tried to lighten the conversation. “I can’t complain that he’s ever offered me a falsehood, nor expected them from me. He’s always been quite plain about needing to marry for money.”

  “I must be overtired,” Emily said, “because I’m not understanding why you don’t simply marry him yourself. He’s asked, hasn’t he?”

  “Oh, yes. He even deigned to tell me that I suited his requirements perfectly.”

  “Which were?”

  “Being female. Having money. That’s it, really. He did admit he liked me too, but that was an afterthought.”

  “What’s wrong with that? An unencumbered fortune is hardly a detriment to your marriageability. He can’t be expected to ignore it.”

  “But couldn’t he pretend to be infatuated with me anyway?” Caroline knew she was sounding petulant again. She felt helpless, as if straining for a treasure held out of reach.

  “No, I don’t think he can pretend. Your puppy suitors are better fitted for that—though I am sure it is not all pretense, because you’re quite ravishing, Caro.”

  “Oh, quite.” Caroline folded her arms behind her head like a slumberous Venus, feeling neither ravishable nor ravishing this morning.

  “Well, you are. Any man with eyes in his head would be drawn to your appearance, and his interest is sure to be kept there by your money. There’s nothing wrong with that. Wyverne’s simply the only one who went about it the other way around—sniffing from your inheritance to your… ah, other appealing qualities.”

  Caroline’s arms dropped into her lap.

  “Besides,” Emily said, studying the worn lace beneath her fingertips with elaborate attention, “I don’t for a moment think that all he wants from you is your money. And if you do think so, then there’s not as much sense in your lovely head as I’ve credited you with.”

  Caroline stared. Could it be that simple? Her face and fortune were apparent to the world. But Michael did say he liked her. Her.

  No, it all came back to money. Long ago, she hadn’t had any, and now she did. Long ago, Michael had left her without a word; now he had proposed.

  She had sold herself in marriage once. She would not do it again. She would never remarry without having all of her husband and giving all of herself—and she would not do the latter without the former.

  “For heaven’s sake, give me that doily.” She snagged the tattered lace from her friend and began picking at it furiously. “Em, you can’t persuade me he’s looking for anything except a lifelong investor.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Caroline looked up, narrowing her eyes at her friend. The dark-patterned chaise framed a face of complete unconcern, as Emily studied the fit of her modish long sleeves.

  “Hmmm is not an answer,” Caroline said. “It is an exhalation. Even horses are capable of saying hmmm.”

  “A horse isn’t capable of disagreeing with you, either. Since it seems an echo is all you want from this conversation, perhaps you ought to traipse out to the stables in search of a more sympathetic listener.”

  “I might if you don’t cease your irritating observations. I’ve spent more time with Michael than you have, you know. Surely I can tell what he wants better than you can.”

  Emily reached for an embroidered cushion and stuffed it behind her shoulders, then settled back onto the chaise longue again, her glossy auburn hair a halo around a face of false innocence.

  “What? Nothing to say?” Caroline’s eyebrow shot up. Emily wasn’t the only one who could speak a second language with her facial features.

  “I’m not allowed to say hmmm, and I believe that’s all I have to contribute at this point. You’ve decided he’s mad, and that all he wants is your money, and so you aim to match him with someone who will be content to exchange a title for a fortune and who won’t at all care how he behaves. Yes?”

  “No.”

  Emily’s
expression shifted from wry to puzzled. “No?”

  “I don’t think he’s mad. I’ve never thought that.”

  Emily sat up straight. “Hmmm. I mean—ah, yes, I see.”

  “Do you? How bright you are. We needn’t continue picking me apart, then.”

  “Of course we need continue. So you don’t think he’s mad. Instead, you… oh, I can’t recall what I said next. Was it the money? You do think he wants to marry only for money, and you think Miss Cartwright won’t mind that.”

  “I suppose.” She minded more than she should that Miss Cartwright could slot into Michael’s life easily as a slide into a magic lantern. “If he were mad, it would have made my own humiliation so much less when I was a hopeful debutante and he left me alone at the center of gossip.”

  “Are you so sure he’s not mad, then?”

  “Yes.” That answer, at least, came easily. “He doesn’t care about the things other men care about, but that doesn’t make him mad. He still perceives reality in an accurate way, as far as I can tell—if that is how one defines madness.”

  “I would define a madman as one who didn’t tumble at your feet,” Emily said loyally.

  “He’s done that, well enough.” Annoyingly, her cheeks grew pink.

  A grin spread across Emily’s face. “Ah. So there was a tumble. I do wonder why you both persist in this cool distance of finances and contracts when it’s perfectly apparent that you long to become entangled in a very different type of affair. Did you tumble for him as well as he did for you?”

  “As well as he deserved,” Caroline said crisply. She teased out a final knot of lace, then tossed the bedraggled doily to the floor. “Oh, Em. I don’t know what he deserves, nor I.”

  “Then it’s a good thing we’re all together in this lovely home so you can find out,” Emily said. “You’ve given yourself the task of finding him a wife, and I believe you shall. I’ve never known you to fail when determined. Not since…”

  “Not since I went chasing after Michael the first time,” Caroline finished. “I know, I know. Well, Miss Cartwright may do the trick. If all he wants is a ledger with a pretty face, she’ll happily serve.”