To Charm a Naughty Countess

by Theresa Romain

  She noticed, detached, the way her skin heated as if slapped, then prickled with icy numbness. The blank before agony. Dimly, she felt surprise that a single phrase could matter so much.

  And then feeling came rushing back, her ears roaring with all the noise of the crowds on Fishergate. She knew she must look as wrong as she felt. Michael had tilted his head in that curious way he had.

  When she spoke, her voice was carefully quiet. “Your uncertainty surprises me.”

  He lifted his brows, imperious as a bust of Caesar. “Why need you concern yourself with my actions?” After all, I am not concerned with yours was the unvoiced second half of that sentence.

  Caroline drew herself up to her full height and peered down at him, taking advantage of her standing position to impress her point on his notice. “Because, Your Grace, my own reputation is on the line. On this house party, and on your engagement, depend my place in society as well as yours.”

  The bust of Caesar knit his brows. He did not understand.

  She bit back a sigh. “You made a fool of me once before, Michael. Yes, it was long ago, but if you choose not to marry now, after I have publicly aided you, the ton will remember. Their respect will turn to mockery.”

  She hated even to say the words, true as she knew them to be. She had already lived through this once.

  Her plan had begun so well: she would triumph over him, and herself, and the polite world. Not in any malicious way, but in a way that would give them all what they needed. Society would get its gossip about the change in the mad duke; Michael would win a rich dowry. And Caroline? She would come to understand him, and the means by which he had so long kept her fascinated.

  Now, with every knot she untied, she snarled up two more. She must untie them all, though, and redeem herself. She must once again play matchmaker.

  She could not remember when her heart had been in it less. How could it, when it was already spoken for?

  Her hands clenched; Michael’s eyes followed their movement. “So you want me to choose a wife to bolster your social consequence.”

  She frowned. “No, Michael. I want you to give the selection of a duchess at least as much attention as you give to a magic-lantern slide of a steam locomotive that once ran for a few weeks in London. Because you need to know now, and for the rest of your life, that your whims affect others too. If you ruin your life, you’ll lessen mine too.”

  “But you once told me, Caro, that I had not the power to ruin you.” He captured her gaze with those tree-green eyes.

  Neither blinked, neither moved, as they recalled the moment of their mutual ruination. Their bodies entwined, the breathless hours in which they both seemed to have found what they longed for. What they had always longed for.

  How transient the fulfillment had been, yet how painfully lovely. The thought of it made the fine hairs on Caroline’s arms prickle and rise, as though they sought his touch.

  She could have sighed, or cried, or lied to him.

  But she didn’t. She stood straight and tall and alone, and she laid herself bare. “It seems you have more power over me than I realized.”

  She raised a hand, stared at it as though it belonged to a stranger. Then she took a fraught step closer to him and laid her hand on his chest with a gentle, rolling pressure.

  “We’ve tied ourselves together, Michael, for better or worse.”

  ***

  For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.

  No, never that. She had made that clear.

  Michael folded his arms, as though this would protect his heart. But it only thudded faster, wanting her to notice it. Wanting her to slip her hand under the shirt that lay over his chest, to stroke his skin.

  Treacherous body. He should never have allowed it to waken to her touch.

  He scooted back on the bench, freeing himself from her, then forced himself to his feet. His legs were disinclined to support him, and he circled behind the bench to lean against the iron-steady support of the gas lamp. Willing his heart to slow, slow, but his sullen flesh instead sent the pounding upward to his head.

  He squinted, wishing the thump in his head would diminish along with his field of vision. “I am not being flighty in my choice of a wife. To the contrary, I hope to make a marriage that is both sensible and financially advantageous. And of course, I hope it is a happy union too.”

  Caroline’s smile looked odd. Rather frozen.

  He drew himself away from the support of the gas lamp, stepped closer to her again. The ironwork wall of the bench held them a decorous yard apart. “What is the matter?”

  “Oh, nothing, nothing,” she said through that frozen smile. “You brought up happiness, that is all, and I am merely sharing it. I am happy, Michael, that you should regard as worthy of mention such a nebulous, unscientific quality as happiness.”

  Michael’s brow furrowed. “You are teasing me.”

  “Not at all.” The smile melted away. When she spoke again, her voice was pure vinegar. “But are you quite certain of what you want in a wife? Are you absolutely sure—sure enough to stake your dukedom’s solvency—that Miss Cartwright cannot make you happy? Because you certainly can make her so, simply by hauling out your magic lantern.”

  He wondered why her demeanor had changed so swiftly between sweet and sour. But since she assured him she was not, in fact, teasing him, he would give her a serious reply.

  He considered before he spoke, letting the distant sun warm his thoughts to life. If the sky seemed endless in Lancashire, somehow the sun seemed farther away. Those who wished for a life of easy gain would be better off matching their mettle against a different part of the country.

  “I do not know,” he said, “whether I truly can make Miss Cartwright happy as a wife. But she might not look for happiness. I believe she is most concerned with the expansion of empire.”

  Caroline’s brows lifted. “A characteristic that a duke with a taste for innovation ought to admire. Covet, even.”

  At the word covet, his veins rushed warm. Caroline could not possibly know the depth of covetousness a man could achieve when he pent up his physical urges for thirty-two years, then lavished them one single time on one wondrous woman. “You do not know what I covet.”

  “Oh, I think I do. Or I know what you don’t. You did not care for the delicate sensibilities of Miss Weatherby or her mother, who dared take umbrage when you spoke the word damn in her presence. Yet you also did not care for Miss Meredith, who was too indelicate for your tastes.” Her hands flexed. “Now you also reject Miss Cartwright, who is a wealthy orphan and who likes magic lanterns, and who would dutifully bear you an heir without being horrified by your own passions, nor bestirring them overmuch. And so,” she concluded, sinking onto the bench, “I can only conclude that you covet solitude.”

  She looked away from him, for which he was grateful. She had flayed him with her logic. Terrible woman, to turn one of his own favorite weapons against him. And when she stripped from him all other possibilities, shields, armors, the only thing he had left was the naked truth.

  “Not solitude,” he said in a voice that was raw and new. “Only the right person.”

  He had invested himself in her, and now he had nothing left to give to another. She had bankrupted him, but it was his own fault. He should have remembered to trust only himself.

  “Fine, fine.” She splayed her hands in an I-give-up gesture. The movement drew his eye to the slim line of her wrist, the shape of her palm, the spread of her fingers and thumb.

  She had run those fingers over the whole length of his body, palming his troubles and flicking them away with her every movement.

  Only for a while, though. Only for a short while. She could not know the determination it took to overcome one’s deepest faults or the rigid control used to manage the tensions, worries, burdens of a lifetime.

 
He had his pride: the pride of a man, and a duke, and a rejected lover. It was a pride of practically infinite dimensions. So he flung himself into its puffery and replied, “In time, I will come to terms with Miss Cartwright. She will benefit materially from the connections she will gain as a peeress. It is a most logical match.”

  Caroline’s last speech seemed to have drained her. Rather than having the lushness of a rose in bloom, she was simply a slim blond woman with pretty features and elegant clothing, sitting carefully straight on a bench. No spark in her.

  “I am sure you are right,” she said in a colorless voice. “It will be the best of bargains. No compromises, only gain for both parties. I will do what I can to help you, though I do not believe you will require my help much longer.” She smiled faintly. “We have not even used all six days that I thought I might require, have we?”

  “I’ve lost count,” Michael said through a throat that seemed crammed with cotton.

  “I too.” She sat, silent and still, for a moment, then added, “Miss Cartwright has as much pride as any woman I’ve ever known. Well, almost any woman.” Her smile turned wry before vanishing. “I’ll try to smooth her prickles and charm her a bit for you, since I do have that ability left to me, for now.”

  Her kindness rasped at him; he disliked the ease with which she turned her gifts to his benefit, to throw him at another woman. He thought about saying, There’s no need to tie yourself to me any more closely. I can manage this myself.

  “Do as you think best,” he said at last. Letting her decide how close, or how far, she wanted him.

  “You could survive on very few phrases.” Caroline rose to her feet, smoothing her skirts. “Do as you think best. I beg your pardon. Deuced cold, isn’t it?”

  “I am accustomed to doing what I like,” Michael shot back.

  “That one’s as true for you as it is for me,” Caroline said. “Don’t you think?”

  He could only stare at her, stunned. Of course he didn’t think that was true. His days were crammed with obligations. His pockets were empty. His house was overrun by strangers. And he would soon need to marry for the sake of everyone in his dukedom, except himself.

  But he said none of this, only shook his head.

  Caroline watched him for a few endless seconds, and something in her expression seemed to waver. Michael did not know whether it was anger or sorrow or merely exasperation.

  Finally, she tilted up her chin with as much hauteur as any duchess, then marched away from him, slipping into the teeming crowds of the street.

  Twenty-two

  “Won’t you join us, Wyverne?” Lord Tallant hefted a billiard mace in one hand and a cue in the other.

  The party had returned to Callows in time for dinner; now the guests sought amusement again. Michael hoped the good-tempered earl had more of a knack for billiards than he did for cards. Quite well, he recalled the evening he’d spent at Tallant House, when the earl had been bested at whist less by the Weatherby women than by his own poor memory for cards.

  At first, a refusal hovered on Michael’s lips. A sheaf of papers as thick as his fist awaited his attention in his study, and he felt a nagging urge to look through them before he turned in for the night. Caroline’s abrupt departure in Preston had left him in a spin of unsettlement, and he knew from long experience that the best way to calm himself was work. Work to the point of exhaustion.

  But then he remembered, as surely as if Caroline had spoken the words in his ear: you are the host. He owed the guests his time, especially if he ever wanted the ton to trust him again.

  And if he played along with this game, perhaps Caroline would hear of it—and then she would know she had judged him too hastily and too harshly.

  “Thank you, Tallant,” Michael said. “I believe I will.”

  The wood-paneled billiard room was stuffed with male guests, all imbibing either port or tobacco. After neglecting that sacred alcohol-based ritual the previous night, Michael was atoning.

  “Your Grace?” A cue waved in Michael’s face. “Will this one work for you?”

  Michael offered the cue-giver a creaky smile. “Thank you… Hambleton.”

  He must have recalled the man’s name accurately, because the curly-haired dandy colored over his absurdly high shirt points and bobbled back to the side of the billiard table with a series of shallow bows.

  Michael swatted the cue into his right palm. Again, Caroline was right: a lofty title plus a leavening of kindness predisposed people to judge him more lightly.

  The billiard room was in better order than many others at Callows, for its condition mattered greatly to its purpose. A desk, for example, worked as well whether polished to a high gloss or nicked to high heaven. But a billiard room must be well paneled and insulated, so that temperature and humidity would neither warp the table nor crack the ivories. It must be lit well, too, so a man could make his shot without being confounded by shadows.

  The Callows billiard room, Michael realized, was something to be proud of. He knew this because the Londoners were not looking about themselves dubiously, as they had in almost every other room of his house. Instead, they were selecting cues in the deliberate way men used when trying to impress their skill upon their peers.

  It was agreed that Hambleton, Tallant, and Everett would play the first game with Michael, while those who didn’t wind up with a cue contented themselves with a bottle of something spirituous instead. The four players began as usual, by stringing for the lead.

  When Michael stepped up to the table, he exhaled, squared his shoulders, aimed his cue. Stringing was simple, for it depended only on force, not on angle. All he need do was strike the ball hard enough to roll it to the cushion at the upper end of the table—which it reached, slowly, and settled against. He nodded his satisfaction and straightened.

  And was faced with the other three players, looking like the horsemen of the apocalypse. Tallant’s shock warred with his normally pleasant features; Hambleton had gone pale as death. Everett wore a pestilent grin.

  “Fine shooting, Your Grace,” he said. “I’ve never seen anyone string up as perfectly as that.”

  “Truly?” Michael looked at the cue in his hand, wondering if it had transformed into a snake to shock them all so. But no, it was nothing but a long stick of maple with a leather tip.

  Oh. Maybe it was that. “You might find that the leather tips of these cues assist in your aim. They were first used by a Frenchman about a decade ago. I’ve been pleased with the results.”

  The three seemed to accept this answer, but they had less luck than Michael. Hambleton’s ball was a foot shy; then Tallant’s shot cracked against Hambleton’s ball and sent it against the side cushion.

  The earl peered at his cue, frowning, then shrugged. “Sorry about that,” he said to Hambleton’s storm cloud of a face.

  Everett made a nice shot that finished only a few inches away from Michael’s. He turned from the table, his dark face as full of wicked humor as ever. “That’d have been good enough in most games, Your Grace. I’m not sure it’s the cues so much as the players wielding them.”

  Michael cleared his throat. “Yes, well, I’ve often heard that it’s not so much the make of a cue as the way it’s used.” This bawdy joke went over with a gratifying amount of raucous laughter. It seemed a male audience liberally plied with spirits was quite ready to be amused.

  This was rather a novelty. And rather… rather pleasant.

  He realized now what Caroline had tried several times to tell him: that everyday pleasures enriched the business of life.

  The other men collected around the table, watching as the game began in earnest. Michael started cautiously, giving up a hazard in order to take the measure of the other players.

  They were much as he expected from their first shots. Everett was careful but no expert. He would never humiliate himself with a terri
ble shot, but he hadn’t the eye for a great one. Hambleton was forceful and had a good mind for the angles, but his temper got in the way of his play, and he was as likely to be dreadful as spectacular. Tallant was a careless player, just as he was at cards. He biffed away at whatever ball was closest to him, whether the ivory cue or one of the red-painted object balls.

  Michael’s turn again. Now he knew the other players. He was prepared.

  He bent, aimed. His mind mapped the angles needed, a web of lines arrowing over the table. With a dull thup of leather against ivory, the cue ball obediently rolled to one red ball, knocked it with a crisp crack, and sent it in a quick carom to the other red ball.

  It was all over in a second. Michael stood and looked toward Everett.

  The younger man shook his head. “You go again, Your Grace.”

  Ah, that was right. Michael rarely played a full game of billiards—with whom would he play?—though he enjoyed the geometric exercise of practicing angles. It relaxed him, freed his mind. Another way of managing the headaches when they began to gnaw.

  He realized, as he bent and eyed the length of his cue again, that everyone in the room was staring at him. And he realized too that this didn’t bother him a bit, because there were no continuous variables here. There was nothing to doubt. There was only a ball, a cue, and two targets to hit.

  So he hit them again. And again. And again.

  But he was the host, and he must not consider only himself. After his fourth successful shot, he looked up to Everett. “We can move on to another inning if you wish.”

  “If I wish?” Everett laid his cue against the wood-paneled wall. “No, indeed, Your Grace. I should like to see how long your luck holds.” Tallant seconded this notion.

  “It’s not luck,” Michael replied. “It’s geometry.”

  Hambleton pulled a face. “It comes to the same thing where I’m concerned.”

  “Nonsense,” Michael said. “You’ve a natural eye. Apply geometry, and you will be the master of any table.”