Compromised by Christmas (29 page)

"I am not used to dealing with virgins. I told her to
scream and she refused. She was not averse to pleasure."

Devlin lifted an eyebrow.

"Yes, I'm sure. We had intimacies enough that I could
tell it was new to her."

Which wasn't exactly the question he meant to ask,
but he could tell Max was searching for the exact moment when
things had gone wrong.

"Why would she not scream if she felt I was abusing
her? A scream would have settled the matter of her being
compromised before it had gone so far."

"Compromised?"

"She meant to catch Breedon," Max said bitterly.

"Ah, but you had switched rooms with him."

"For God's sake, what did I do wrong?" Max bent his
head and held it in his hands.

"Did you tell her that you loved her?"

"I—no." Max frowned. "She's not interested in
love."

"On the contrary, all women are interested in love,
especially from a husband." Devlin took another drink.

"No, she wanted money. I can only comfort myself that
she wanted money from Breedon."

Devlin choked on the brandy and coughed.

Max took the flask from him and drained it.

When Devlin could breathe again, he asked, "Did you
agree to give her money?"

"No, I thought to force her to marriage, by refusing
it." Max handed back the empty flask. "Despicable of me."

He moved away. "I don't have the ready to spare
anyway."

Devlin put the information in the back of his brain.
He'd sort it out later when he was less wrapped up in his own pain.
"You know, you are not the only one who has been refused this
night."

Max paused and then looked over his shoulder.

"I mean to try again, though. My ring is stuck on
Fanny's finger." Devlin barked a laugh. "Some justice in that."

Max returned and threw an arm around Devlin's
shoulders. "Fine Christmas this is turning out to be." He gestured
toward his brothers' graves. He started to speak, but was unable to
get the words out.

Funny, Devlin had not thought Max would take the
death of his brothers so hard. Devlin had thought himself closer to
Samuel and Alexander than Max. When they had asked him how Max
would deal with their deaths, he had not realized how deeply it
would wound Max.

"Do not give up just yet." Scully tossed his arm
around Max's shoulders so they could toddle along like two
peep-of-day boys who needed to lean on each other to stand. "She is
terrified of something."

"Who, Fanny?"

"No, Roxana."
Well, possibly Fanny too
,
thought Dev, but Fanny tended to be more dependent.

Max snorted. "Do not be absurd. Roxy is afraid of
nothing. That is one of the things I admire about her."

They took a few steps toward the house, then Max
stopped. "The thing is, I believe she was put up to coming here and
being compromised by the richest man here."

*~*~*

Alone in her room, Roxana finished packing. Her
shaking hands hardly allowed her to complete her task. Her mind was
swirling with condemnations of herself.

She would have to find another way to get to London
and open her dress shop.

Stay with the duke.

The thought kept intruding.

Marry the duke.

No, she could not give him control of her.

She feared if he approached her, she would fall
apart. When the girl assigned as her maid appeared at first light,
she had her summon footmen to take her trunks down. Perhaps the
Breedons would allow her to ride with them to the next town.

But as she descended to the front hall to see what
she could arrange to transport her trunks, the footmen were
carrying her bags out of doors and lifting them onto a
carriage.

She took a step toward the door.

Scully walked through the hall, brushing his hands.
Roxana drew up short. Were they sending her away? Had Max decided
he could not tolerate her presence? If so, that would solve the
problem with transportation. Except they would send her home
instead of to London.

"Miss Winston, might I have a word with you?"

She nodded, swallowing hard.

He led her into the library. He gestured for her to
have a seat. She noticed two empty glasses and an empty decanter on
the table between the two easy chairs.

"Merry Christmas," he began with his easy smile.

"Merry Christmas," she managed her voice
croaking.

"Are you all right?" Scully asked. He leaned forward
and studied her.

"I'm fine."

"Are you quite certain?"

"I'm fine," she repeated.

"Max did not injure you in any way?"

Roxana met his eyes firmly. "Not in any physical
way."

Scully's eyes narrowed. "Max said you asked for
money."

Her ability to stand her ground dissolved, she looked
down at her clasped hands. Had her behavior been dissected and the
entrails read? Her skin heated.

"For the damage to my good name?" She had not meant
to sound uncertain.

"Why do you need money?"

"I cannot say."

Scully folded his arms. "So was your plan all along
to come here and blackmail a man?"

Roxana refused to answer. She stared at her hands.
Scully stood and she clenched her eyes closed. Something landed in
her lap. She opened her eyes and saw several bank notes.

"You don't deserve it."

Had Max changed his mind? "Did Max . . . ?"

"Max loves you, whether he knows it or not."

Roxana felt hot tears sting her cheeks as she
gathered the funding for her dreams, and an amount that would keep
her brother and sisters fed and warm for years. "I'll repay it
all."

Scully went still.

Max must have changed his mind. Either that or the
light of day had returned reason to him and he remembered he did
not intend to marry.

"I am ever so grateful for your intercession." She
sprang out of her chair and headed for the door. Now she could
follow her dream and open her dress shop. And if her heart ached at
the though of leaving, she was doing the right thing. She would
never give a man the rights that marriage conferred upon a husband.
Therefore she could never give Max what he wanted. He would realize
that her leaving would be best for both of them.

Max woke late in the morning. His sleep had been late
in coming and fitful. Desire tormented him all through the night.
He had been so close to burying himself in Roxana's willing body
when they were interrupted. He could scarcely think of anything
else. Never had he anticipated with so much intensity the joining
with a woman. He had gone past want. He
needed
her.

He shoved down the throb of his body. Just because he
was more than ready for lovemaking did not mean she was as
prepared. He might have ruined everything with his impatience. His
gut twisted and his head ached. That she might have interpreted his
unwillingness to wait as a lack of concern about her disturbed
him.

The copious amount of wine he and Scully drank last
night did not help his pounding head, but that did not mitigate his
desire for Roxana. Yet, a certain optimism coursed through his
blood.

Roxana had been confused, upset and overwhelmed by
all the events of yesterday. If he just restored their friendship,
gave her time to become used to the idea that they had to marry,
she would come around. He would invite her up to London to stay for
the season. Her whole family could come. He could afford to feed
and house them, at least. He would tell her if she still did not
want to marry him at the end of the season he would bow out of her
life. But he had no intention of letting that happen.

In their heartfelt discussions last night, he and
Scully had come to the conclusion that women much preferred the
courtship to the engagement. Surety was more of an attraction to
men. He would court Roxana and make her acknowledge that she
enjoyed being with him.

When he thought of her response to him in bed, he
knew her resistance was naught but a paper tiger. When he convinced
her to come up to town, he would have to book lodgings or stay with
a friend. And if Fanny could not cope with shepherding Roxana
about, he could have one of his aunts come and stay too.

He growled at his reflection in his shaving glass as
he realized he would have to restrain his physical desire. He would
have to wait for marriage, to demonstrate to her that he could
control his urges. That would be the hardest part, but dear God,
madness had overtaken him last night. It was never well done to
ignore the rules.

He knew that.

Finishing his ablutions and patting dry his freshly
shaved face, he took an extra minute to put his razor in the
cupboard.

He rushed downstairs, only to be waylaid by Fanny
outside the breakfast room.

"Is Miss Winston with you?" she asked, her face
puckered in worry.

"No, of course not. Is she not in her room?"

"No, she is gone and her things are gone, and what am
I to tell her mother?"

"She can't have vanished into thin air." Panic
crashed over Max like a rogue wave that would drown him. Had his
actions of the night before prompted her to run away? He could not
believe she had disappeared.

He took the stairs two at a time and threw back her
door. The room was neat; the bed already made or never slept in.
The cupboard drawers were empty. The wardrobe was empty. No sign of
her occupation remained in the room. It was if she had never been.
Yet he had not dreamed such a perfect, irritating creature.

Also missing was the pouch of his mother's jewelry.
Anger clenched at his guts. She was not only an extortionist, but
also a thief? He shook it off. It was his fault. He had not
listened when she said she needed money. He bent his head and raked
his hands through his hair.

A paper peeked out from behind the writing desk. Max
shifted the desk from the wall and retrieved the letter. He skimmed
down the contents, reading the reports of health, the loss of
tenants because of a raucous party, a great deal of focus on food
or the lack thereof, and then the instructions for compromise,
disjointed and vague. A tear stained the page.

Hellfire and brimstone, here was the proof that
Roxana's plan was not her own. That she had been forced to . . .
but the letter writer clearly wanted Roxana to accept marriage.

Max stared at the tiny crisscrossed writing and the
tear that blurred the words. Had the tear been Roxana's?

He had to go after her.

*~*~*

Desperation made strange bedfellows, thought Roxana
as she looked around the building she had just leased. The
storefront downstairs would allow for her shop. The attic above
provided a long work area complete with skylights to take advantage
of the sun, and the storage room behind the shop would provide
fitting and changing rooms. And she would make her living space in
a far corner of the attic.

Her breath hung in the air. Water had run in from the
windows set in the roof and stained the ceiling, but she was
excited. The money she had saved hitching a ride with Lady
Malmsbury would help her fund the necessary modifications to the
building.

She hadn't intended to ask the woman who had made an
enemy of her for a ride, but when her trunks accidentally got
carted out with Lady Malmsbury's baggage and stowed on her
carriage, she'd bribed her ladyship's coachman to let her ride on
the box with him to the nearest posting town.

At the coaching house, when Roxana had not moved off
the box fast enough, Lady Malmsbury had spied her and then said,
"You were the one in his bed. I saw dark hair, and I have not seen
a maid of the house with hair so dark. Nor would he have made such
an effort to conceal the identity of a servant."

"His grace has treated us both ill," answered Roxana.
"I apologize for stowing away on your carriage, but I wished to get
away quickly."

Lady Malmsbury's green eyes flashed, but then she
asked Roxana's destination and agreed to carry her to the City.
Other than listening to Lady Malmsbury's rants Roxy had tried not
to think about Max. That he had been the woman's lover made her
chest ache, and while she did not believe above half of what Lady
Malmsbury said, that half hurt.

Still, that was in the past, and Roxana had her seed
money for her business and she'd found a great location. Max had
given her the way to pursue her dream, and for that she would be
ever grateful. If her money seemed to be disappearing a little
faster than she wished, she would open her business soon and earn
it all back. And as soon as she knew her father had left home and
could not abscond with it, she would send money home.

*~*~*

Max knocked on the door of Wingate Hall and waited
patiently. He was astounded that a footman failed to open the door
when he approached on horseback. His carriage was a day behind him.
He had ridden on ahead, hoping to run across Roxana. He could not
believe he had not encountered her on the road. He'd even followed
a mail coach for several miles, checking the passengers when it
stopped at its posting inn.

Where the hell was she?

He fisted his hand and banged on the door. The Hall
showed signs of abandonment. The drifts of snow in the corners of
the stairs indicated they had never been swept clean. The windows
were streaked with dirt and the pleasure gardens to the left of the
house appeared terribly overgrown.

He backed away and saw not one puff of smoke from any
of the chimneys. Were they away?

Max pulled out the letter and reread the postmark. It
had come from this county and this was the return address.

He scanned the horizon. The smell of wood smoke hung
on the air. Once he spotted the column of smoke he followed it down
to the small cottage. He led his horse toward the signs of
life.