“I suppose if you were, as you say, an innocent, and if I wanted to form a lasting attachment, then I would properly woo you with flowers and poetry, sweet treats and outings, always with a companion so as not to sully your reputation.
He paused. “In fact, I have done many of those things, have I not?”
“You’ve done some of those,” she granted, “as well as other things you definitely wouldn’t do, or shouldn’t, when properly wooing.”
She was right about that. And without any regrets, either. However, he wanted to move on. He wasn’t content to hope for an occasional crumb of intimacy. He wanted to drop a kiss on her delectable lips whenever it suited him without fear of recrimination. He wanted to make love to her and know in the morning, she wouldn’t be so distraught she’d plunge a knife into his chest.
“Are you saying I am going about this all wrong?” he asked. “Are you asking me to become a formal suitor, to woo you properly, with the intent of getting engaged? Is your objective to be married again?”
As he said the words, he realized with stark clarity he would find that particular outcome perfectly acceptable. Yes, he could see himself spending his life with her. He’d never met a woman he enjoyed more, and he hadn’t even bedded her yet.
What’s more, the fondness he’d developed for her, which seemed to grow with each meeting, might even be… love.
Chapter Nineteen
At first, Ada thought she would have to curtail the discussion. She didn’t wish to speak of a future with Lord Vile, certainly not an understanding they would become paramours. However, the more she let him think and question, the closer he got to understanding what she wanted was his heart.
He simply didn’t realize what she wanted to do with it.
Thus, when he asked her about marriage, instead of calling him impertinent, she hesitated, hoping she appeared to be pondering what she wanted. Eagerness at this stage might still ruin the game.
At last, she answered his questions.
“I’m saying I wish to be treated as any respectable woman, not as if, because of my previous marital status, I’m ripe only for a tryst or for being your paramour. If you think that means an intent to marry, that is entirely your conclusion.”
She watched him drink his wine, at least his second glass if not his third, as he kept his gaze locked on her.
What was he thinking behind those tiger-colored eyes?
“I believe I see the difference at last,” he said. “One engages only the body and the mind, of course, and the other engages the heart.”
She nearly fell off her chair. He had come to it at last. Nodding her approval, she said nothing. He was doing so well on his own, she didn’t want to interrupt.
“It’s not a foreign notion to me. As you know, I was very briefly engaged. Like you with your Mr. St. Ange, I, too, had my heart involved in the process. I found the experience unsatisfactory at best.”
Unsatisfactory. A strange word for having one’s parents ruin one’s intended marriage. In any case, even if his heart had been bruised, it was nothing compared to how he’d devastated her.
Her good humor died, as it always did when she recalled that night. She’d practically worshiped Michael Alder, only to have him use her like a handkerchief, easily tossed aside.
Moreover, he was still treating women the same, even now. How easily he’d left Elizabeth Pepperton to begin something with her.
“Your heart,” she mused, trying to picture the tiny, black, hardened organ in his chest. “You spent six months with Lady Pepperton only to walk away as if she were less than nothing to you. That type of arrangement doesn’t interest me either.”
He frowned.
“You are correct in one regard. My heart was never involved when it came to Lady Pepperton. Nor hers with me, to be fair. However, you are entirely incorrect regarding what she means to me. We were friends and still are. She knows she can call on me if I can be of service.”
She coughed, letting her imagination run wild.
“Not that type of service,” he added, reading her thoughts correctly.
They were going in circles. Ada had always been of the mind Lord Vile didn’t have a heart. That was until he’d told her he hadn’t ended his engagement with Jenny over her change in fortune. On the other hand, she needed him to have enough of one so she could break it. A truly heartless rogue would never feel the pangs of unrequited love she hoped to inflict.
To that end, she would follow Alder’s logic.
“You are correct in thinking I don’t wish for an arrangement involving only the body and mind. However, I have no inclination toward marriage, either.”
“Getting the heart involved without the goal of marriage? How forward-thinking of you,” he declared.
Vengeance was as old as time, she thought. Not forward-thinking at all.
It was also far trickier than she’d imagined. For there were so many redeeming qualities about this man, as long as her heart was positively not engaged. As long as she saw him for what he was.
Tonight, as with each time they were together, she would have to bend and give a little, usually more than she intended, and then send him on his way. It had become easier and easier to give a little more because it seemed she was the one receiving pleasure each time.
However, giving him pleasure in return was beyond her. It would mark her as low and common, and it would almost seem as if she forgave his earlier indiscretions.
Which she could not.
After their dessert, a perfectly edible strawberry mouse, Ada rose from the table wondering how long she would have to entertain him in the drawing room before he started to kiss her. For when he did, she could send him home.
To her amazement, as soon as they left the dining room, he went toward the front door.
Mr. Randall appeared out of nowhere as he always did when people were coming and going.
“Randall,” Michael said, “My coat and hat, if you will.”
“Are you leaving?” she asked him, feeling quite astonished at his abrupt departure.
“Why, yes. It’s been a long day, starting in Hadlow this morning. I assume you are ready to settle into your own bed.”
The word conjured up the scene from the night before and what he had done to her on the bed, as she was certain he knew it would.
Feeling her cheeks grow warm, she glanced away when Randall returned.
Quickly, Michael shrugged into his overcoat and donned his hat.
“May I call on you again soon?”
How strange, but she felt a sense of disappointment he wasn’t trying to make love to her, not even a chaste kiss on the cheek. What was he playing at?
Remember you don’t really want him, she reminded herself. This is only a ruse.
“You may,” she told him. “Perhaps next week.”
“Perhaps tomorrow,” he corrected. Tipping his hat, he departed.
Tomorrow? As quickly as the disappointment arrived, it dissipated. She was actually looking forward to seeing Lord Vile. That could not be good.
Heading upstairs, she ordered Lucy to draw a bath and, as soon as possible, sunk into the hot water, feeling exhaustion close over her. Michael was right. It had been a long day, and she was starting to let the charms of the man muddle her thinking, and her feeling.
Including, she realized, starting to think of him as Michael.
After a good night’s sleep, she would be herself again.
*
When he sent a message in the morning he would be stopping by after lunch, Ada nearly went out for a stroll simply to spite him. However, she reminded herself of her aim. The sooner she achieved it, the sooner she could end this charade and never see him again.
That was what she wanted, after all.
Thus, when he arrived at the door midafternoon holding flowers, she had already steeled herself against his charm while at the same time plastering a pleasant smile on her face.
Taking the flowers, she sniffed them once, then handed them
to Mr. Randall.
“You’re welcome,” Michael quipped.
“Ah, you want me to gush over them after you practically spelled out last night your plan as a suitor. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a Cadbury’s chocolate bar in your pocket wrapped in a poem of your own creation.”
The sheepish look upon his handsome face was positively precious to behold. She had guessed correctly. A sweet treat was nestled in his pocket next to his ever-present flagon of brandy.
All he said was, “Of course, there’s not a poem in my pocket.”
Then he treated her to his broad grin, which annoyingly made her insides flutter.
“I’m still working on it and left it on my writing desk. And I have Fry’s chocolate in my pocket, which I shall now give to Harry and not to you.”
She liked how he included Harry so naturally.
“You didn’t tell me what you wished to do today. I had no idea how to dress.”
“You are dressed beautifully as always,” he said, his gaze traveling over her violet day dress, from neckline to hem with approving eyes.
She felt warm all over. In that instant, she decided as soon as she’d finished with Lord Vile, she might ask Maggie to begin the hunt for a suitable husband for her. She had never noticed a sense of loneliness before she’d taken up with Michael Alder, but she knew she would miss having a man pay attention to her and keep her company. And kiss and touch her.
At present, though, she couldn’t imagine any other man doing those things except the one who currently stood before her.
Obviously, she had grown attached to the only man she’d spent time with in the past three years, and he was most certainly the wrong man.
“There is so much to do in London, but I admit to a weariness with always having to do something. Would you be amenable to simply walking along Bond Street and looking at the shops?”
She stared at him. Had a man ever asked a woman such a question?
Then she remembered Mr. Randall’s wife.
“That does sound agreeable,” she said. “I would like to go to the Burlington Arcade.”
“Really?” he asked. “It can be a bit rough around the edges.”
Shrugging, she insisted, “Nevertheless, Mr. Randall’s wife works in a shop there, and I would very much like to go. They have a café there, too.”
“Then it’s settled,” he agreed. “Are you ready, or do you need to bathe Harry?”
She laughed. “No, I don’t. And yes, I’m ready.”
“So only the two of us? What about your reputation? Last night, we discussed the necessity of a chaperone.”
She took her cloak from Mr. Randall and let Michael drape it around her shoulders.
“If I were an innocent young lady, as we discussed last night, then yes, I would take Lucy, my maid. But I’m not. Shall we go?”
Mr. Randall held the door, and Ada was never more glad of her invented dead husband than when he gave her the freedom to go out without being watched over like a child.
New Bond Street was lively as usual with members of the ton parading up and down its length, and Ada was distracted by every shop window, many full of luxury items one could never truly need.
She stopped to exclaim before a colorful display of leather bags and silk reticules, silver saltshakers and candlesticks, everything so artfully arranged, she thought it looked like a painting.
“Aspreys,” he said, glancing at the sign overhead.
“Oh, yes.” She knew this store. “They won a medal at the Crystal Palace!”
“Did they?” Michael mused.
“Yes, I remember the name on a ladies dressing case.”
“Well, if you need a case or a bag, this is the place to get one.”
They wandered on with her stopping every few feet until she realized she must be quite a tiresome companion. In her own defense, the last time she’d gone to a shopping district, it had been for necessities for her new home, and she’d gone mainly to Market Hall in Covent Garden. All practical purchases. This was far more pleasurable.
Moreover, she’d never in her life strolled along looking through shop windows with a gentleman. There was something comfortable in how the other couples looked at them, smiled or nodded, and moved on. True, she may have detected a scowl or two, and she thought two ladies crossed to the other side of the road after studying Michael’s face. It might have been her imagination.
Nonetheless, she felt more a part of the greater fabric of London society right then than she had in previous weeks, and she didn’t want to return to a life of seclusion and isolation. He was correct—her life had been lonely.
Once again, she considered asking Maggie to be a matchmaker.
Every once in a while, if she lingered, Michael offered to buy her something.
“No, thank you,” she said each time. She didn’t need any of the baubles and curios that caught her eye. Moreover, she couldn’t possibly let him spend the money she’d helped him earn, not when she planned to take it all from him.
It was the latter fact which put a slight damper on her enthusiasm. Here they were, having a particularly enjoyable outing, and it was all pretend. The next time she walked along this street, she would most probably be alone again.
“Why the sigh, Ada?”
She jumped at his use of her given name, but let him thread her arm under his.
“I didn’t realize I had.” She certainly couldn’t tell him why. “We are nearly at Old Bond Street, and the arcade is just around the corner.”
He steered her to the left, and they entered the Burlington Arcade of indoor shops from its north entrance, nodding to a Beadle—one of the arcades private police force—as they entered.
“Mr. Randall’s wife told me this building is one-hundred-and-ninety-six yards long.”
“Fascinating,” he quipped.
“It’s modeled after the covered shops in Paris.”
“Truly?” He didn’t sound impressed.
She nodded to another Beadle whom they passed as they began the long parade past the many storefronts.
“I suppose with the jewelry stores, they are a necessity,” she mused.
He chuckled.
“What is amusing?”
Gesturing to the second story, he said, “They deter thieves, no doubt, but they also keep the business on the upper floors from getting out of hand, or from spilling down here to the reputable areas.”
Glancing up, she frowned. “Don’t the shop owners live up there?
“Some, but many rooms are for harlots and their customers.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, staring curiously at the second level with windows overhanging the arcade. At that moment, above her head, perhaps men and women were engaging in the act!
“Just promise you won’t ever come here in the evening.”
She nodded unthinkingly, only afterward considering it was none of his business where she went, or when.
“Let’s find Mrs. Randall, shall we?” he asked, and they continued along the promenade, past sellers of shoes and shawls, flowers and books. Next door to a fine men’s haberdashery, Ada stopped to peer into a shop that dressed women’s hair.
“I suppose if you don’t have help at home,” Ada said, a little disturbed at the notion of a stranger doing her hair and practically in a public place, too.
Another few doors down, they spotted the milliner’s shop at which Emily Randall worked, with a sign out front that looked like a bonnet with ribbons.
“I’ll wait here, shall I?” Michael asked.
“If you like,” she agreed. “I’ll only be a minute. I suppose I should purchase some ribbons or a hatpin at least while I’m in there.”
“Take your time. I’ll stroll a little farther and return in a few minutes.”
They made their plans like a couple, she thought, entering the shop. How nice it would be to think of him coming back to collect her and then going home together to dinner.
“Good day, Mrs. St. Ange,”
Mrs. Randall greeted her. “How nice of you to come.”
It turned out to be a lovely shop overflowing with merchandise and at good prices. Ada tried on a few hats, and though not intending to buy one, she did, along with a new pin to hold it on as she was forever losing them.
Even so, she was back outside in short time and wandering along, looking for Michael.
He emerged from a print seller a few yards ahead, bowing slightly as two women passed him. They averted their eyes and walked more quickly. As they approached her, Ada distinctly heard, “Lord Vile.”
Halting, she cocked her head to catch the discussion as they walked by.
“… Shouldn’t be out in public,” said the first lady.
“What a reprobate! Why, I believe I felt his eyes upon my person.”
“Truly, he shouldn’t loiter here with moral folk. The East End is where he belongs.”
Goodness! To think people recognized him, the way they did Queen Victoria or Prince Albert. Maggie had been right. He was infamous!
She turned away from them and went to Michael, awaiting her with a package tucked under his arm.
He greeted her with a smile, something she now looked forward to.
Drat!
“We both found something to buy,” he said, taking her hatbox with his free hand before she could stop him. Just like a gentleman.
“Yes, there was a perfectly lovely hat. What did you get?” she asked as they began walking toward the southern doorway of the arcade.
“I won’t show you until we get home.”
Home! He said it as if it belonged to them both. How unsettling.
But all she said was, “A surprise?”
“Indeed.”
She laughed at his use of the word she’d used so often to dismiss him.
“Very well.”
He looked confounded. “Aren’t you going to pester me with questions and beg to know the contents?”
“No.”
“You are an unusual woman to be sure.”
She wondered briefly how many women he’d presented with a gift, only to have them shred the brown paper immediately. In her life, Ada had found surprises often turned out to be unpleasant, and thus, she had no desire to hurry toward its discovery.
Beastly Lords Collection Books 1 - 3: A Regency Historical Romance Collection Page 89