S
o it hadn’t gone according to plan. So what? If there was one thing Braden Granville had learned during the course of his rise to wealth and fame, it was that things often didn’t.
Go according to plan, that is.
And when a woman was involved, well, things were nearly guaranteed to go awry. Particularly when they involved a woman like Caroline Linford, who was clearly. . . .
Well, not normal.
Braden assured himself of the young woman’s abnormality all the way through dinner that night with his fiancée and her family. Really, there wasn’t any doubt about it. No normal woman would have reacted the way Caroline Linford had. There was something seriously wrong with the girl. She had asked him—
begged
him, practically—to teach her the art of lovemaking, and then, when he’d made a sincere and purely scientific attempt to do so, she’d turned on him, viciously as a little alley cat.
Granted, she had made it clear from the start she wanted no actual physical contact. But he’d asked her permission before kissing her, hadn’t he? And she’d given it . . . reluctantly, perhaps, but she’d given it. So what right had she to slap him? What right?
Every right. He had been thoroughly manipulative, and unforgivably rude. His only chance at redeeming himself for his callous behavior was to vow never again to touch, or even go near, her.
A vow that was more easily kept, he immediately found out, when she was not within sight. Because as soon as he spied her in the crowded ballroom to which he was dragged that evening by his fiancée, his resolve crumbled. Within seconds, he was tapping her dance partner—who, thankfully, happened to be her brother, a youth to whom the name Braden Granville was synonymous with Hero—on the shoulder and saying, “Pardon me. But may I?”
The young Earl of Bartlett nearly fell over himself in his haste to surrender his sister, who looked none too happy about the exchange. In fact, she had the nerve to vocalize her chagrin, and quite loudly, too.
“Tommy,” she said, in a dangerous voice.
“Really,” the earl was saying, to Braden. “You take her. I was going to sit this one out, anyway, but Ma made me ask her, since no one else had—”
“Tommy,”
she said, and Braden couldn’t see how her brother failed to hear the warning in her voice.
But Thomas Linford only said, “Have a nice time, you two,” and ran away, leaving his sister—who looked like such a sweet, defenseless young thing—alone in the arms of the infamous Braden Granville.
Defenseless.
Ha!
“You had better stop scowling and start moving,” he said, as he wrapped one hand around her waist, and took up her right fingers in the other, “or your mamma is going to come scooting over here, wondering what’s wrong. And I might just be compelled to tell her.”
The brown eyes, so deceivingly guileless, stared daggers at him. “I’ll
bet
you would,” she said, bitterly. “What are you doing here? Do you have men following
me
now, as well as your Lady Jacquelyn?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He moved her expertly across the crowded floor of the ballroom. “Of course I’m not having you followed. I’m here with Jacquelyn.”
“Well, then why on earth aren’t you dancing with
her?”
Caroline demanded. “She’s the one who agreed to marry you. What are you bothering
me
for?”
“Because I’d like to apologize,” Braden said, calmly.
She eyed him suspiciously. “For what?”
“You know very well,” he said.
“For insulting and degrading me, you mean?”
He nearly stopped dancing, he was so appalled.
“Let’s not go too far,” he said, when he’d recovered himself. “It was only a kiss, after all, Lady Caroline.”
“Was it? Or were you trying to seduce me?” Her look was pointed.
He did stop dancing, at that. “I most certainly was
not.
My God, whatever gave you that idea?”
“Either dance or escort me off the floor,” she whispered. “Don’t just stand there. People are looking.”
He began to move his feet again. “You and I, Lady Caroline,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady, though, truth be told, he felt like shouting, “have a business arrangement—or at least, I thought we did. Where in God’s name did you get the notion that I’m out to seduce you? Simply because of that kiss?”
“You forget,” she said, “I have a brother who worships you. I know all about you,
Mr.
Granville. And your horrid ways.”
She put a rather insulting stress on the word
mister,
as if to suggest he was not worthy of the title.
“Now see here,” he said. “You came to me
because
of my horrid ways. Against my better judgment, I agreed to help you, in exchange for your help with my . . . situation. Now it suddenly seems as if you’re going back on your part of the bargain.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Caroline demanded. “When it’s clear that your intention is to add my name to the list of fools who’ve fallen for you over the years?” She pulled away from him suddenly. “Well, I thank you, Mr. Granville, but that is one honor I think I can do without. You had better consider this dance
over,
Mr. Granville.”
She didn’t just mean the waltz, either, and he knew it.
Suddenly frightened she might actually escape, Braden snatched her to him, pulling her so close against him that Caroline could feel the fob of his watch chain through the whalebone stays of her corset . . . his watch fob, and his heart, which was slamming as hard as hers was against his ribs.
To her mortification, she felt her cheeks heat up again. Not at the inappropriateness of the way he held her, in a very public embrace, but at the myriad of sensations she experienced at the close contact: the scent of him—which she remembered all too well from that afternoon—an extremely masculine combination of soap and, faintly, gunpowder; the warmth that emanated from beneath his coat, almost singeing her through the material of her gloves; the faint bluish tinge of the skin along his jaw, already prickled with razor stubble; that devilish scar in his eyebrow . . . all of these things seemed to prey upon her resistance.
But she
would
resist him. She had to.
“I haven’t the slightest intention of seducing you,” Braden growled. His hot breath caused shivers to ripple up and down her spine, the same shivers she’d felt when he ran his finger along the side of her neck. Worse than the shivers, however, was the fact that she felt her nipples hardening in the lace cups of her corset.
Oh, no,
she thought.
Not again.
“Unless of course,” he went on, “you happen to decide you want me to.”
Caroline said, quickly, “I can assure you that
that
will never happen.”
“Prove it, then,” he said, “by staying and finishing this dance with me. I promise I will behave like a perfect gentleman.”
She continued to hesitate, until he added, “Of course, if you choose to storm off in a huff, it will only draw the attention of people who might inquire as to why you are so angry with me. And I might be compelled to explain our arrangement. . . .”
“You wouldn’t!”
She could see by his expression, however, that he would, and reluctantly she put one hand back upon his broad shoulder, and slipped the other back into his fingers.
“So this is why you’re so successful with women,” she commented. “You
blackmail
them.”
Braden couldn’t help frowning at that. This was not going at all the way he’d intended it to. But what had, since he’d met her? Caroline Linford seemed to bring out the worst in him. It was a battle just to remember he was supposed to be a gentleman now, and not some ham-handed ruffian from the Dials, besotted for the first time.
Besotted? Hardly. What was he thinking?
Interested. That’s what he was. She interested him. She interested him very much indeed. And he’d hoped very much to make a better impression on her than he evidently had that afternoon.
“Believe me, Lady Caroline,” he said, moving her expertly across the dance floor. “If I wanted to, I could make you so eager to dance with me,
you
’d blackmail
me
if I didn’t ask you.”
But all she said in reply to that was a bitter, “Hurst was right about you.”
But not, Caroline had to admit, about everything. His dancing, for one thing. Braden Granville did not dance like a man better used to reels than to waltzes. Why, for a man his size, he was almost graceful! Usually when she found herself being partnered by one of London’s society bucks, Caroline had to fear for her slippers, but in the shelter of Braden Granville’s strong arms, she felt her toes might, for once, be safe. Her only possible objection might be that, unlike herself, he wasn’t wearing gloves, and occasionally she felt his bare hand press not against her waist, but the smooth bare skin of her back, between her shoulder blades. That contact was just a little too intimate for a ballroom in which Caroline’s fiancé was standing just a dozen yards away. Not, of course, that she’d expect Hurst to notice. But her mother certainly might.
“Was he, now?” He didn’t sound in the least pleased to hear it. “And what did the marquis say about me?”
“He told me what an uncouth upstart you are,” she informed him. What she neglected to add was that, when Hurst had said it, she’d objected to the harshness of his condemnation. Now, however, she conveniently left out that part of their conversation. “And he warned me to stay away from you.”
“Oh, he did, did he? So, why,” he inquired, “aren’t you following his advice?”
“Because you’ve got hold of my hand,” Caroline snapped, “and you won’t let go of it,
obviously.”
He threw back his head and laughed, and Caroline, startled, blinked up at him. It was unnerving how handsome Braden Granville looked when he was smiling. And he certainly wore evening clothes well. Why, his cravat was as frilled as any of Hurst’s!
Reminded of her fiancé, Caroline glanced around. Hurst, normally the most laconic of men—which was why she’d found Braden Granville’s description of this “ phantom” lover of Jacquelyn’s so hilarious—wouldn’t have cared if she’d been dancing with a Zulu chieftain . . . particularly tonight. He’d been moody and distracted all evening, to the point that she’d asked him if he felt well.
Yet suddenly, she noticed, he was alert enough not only to recognize that she was dancing with Braden Granville, but also to take exception to the fact. He was already striding toward her mother, his mouth open in a complaining bleat and his finger pointing in her direction.
Good Lord, Caroline thought to herself. Could it be. . . . Was it possible that her fiancé was actually
jealous?
It couldn’t be. Hurst didn’t care about her—not in that way. He only, she knew, hated Braden Granville with a passion, for his low birth and immense wealth and, unquestioningly, choice of bride. Which reminded her. . . .
“If you think,” Caroline snapped, “that we’re going to continue these so-called lessons of yours, may I just point out that you, sir, are sadly mistaken.”
“Oh, but you’re wrong, Caroline,” he said, quietly, looking down at her with such heat in his gaze, Caroline could not look away. “We
are
going to continue them. I’ve already started planning tomorrow’s lesson.”
Caroline swallowed. She didn’t dare ask what might be on the syllabus.
“If you so much as lay a finger on me again,” she said, “I’ll tell Hurst.”
“For someone who claims to be in so much debt to the marquis, you are certainly hasty to put his life in the way of danger. I haven’t been called Dead Eye for most of my life for nothing, you know.”
He was smiling broadly now. The scar in his eyebrow, coupled with the smile, leant him a distinctly devilish air that once again caused Caroline to feel a little breathless. She wondered if she was going to have to put her head between her knees once more.
“It would be a shame,” he said, in a voice that was as much of a caress as the hand he moved slowly once more across the bare skin of her back, “for your fiancé to have go down the aisle with an arm in a sling—or worse yet, in a coffin.”
She sucked in her breath. She couldn’t help it, any more than she could help the tears that sprang suddenly into her eyes. “Stop it,” she said, jerking herself once more from his arms. “You—how
dare
you?”
He knew even before he heard the sob and saw the tears that he’d gone too far. Belatedly, he remembered her brother, and cursed himself. The scare the boy had given her and the rest of his family was still too fresh even to joke about death. He was instantly contrite, moving to lay a comforting arm across her shoulders, an arm she immediately shrugged off.
“Caroline,” he chided her, gently. “I’m sorry. I would never shoot your marquis, even if he did call me out. I know how much he means to you.”
For some reason, however, these words of comfort seemed to have the exact opposite effect he’d intended. For suddenly, Caroline turned and stalked from the room.
Fortunately, the waltz was already ending, and so no one—with the possible exception of her mother— noticed how abruptly Caroline Linford left her partner. Her shoulders stiff with rage—not shame. It certainly wasn’t shame, or so she told herself as she turned around, and began marching blindly away, heading straight for a set of French doors that, she assumed, led out into the garden. She felt a sudden and overpowering need to escape the heat of the room—and Braden Granville’s gaze.