How to Master Your Marquis (44 page)

Her tender female skin.

He would have seen right through her mask of male bravado. He would have annihilated her.

How her chest had collapsed at the words
You may go
, as if the world had vaporized around her.

And then
Unpacked in the suite next to mine
, the point at which her heart had resumed beating, with this alarming and reckless patter of . . . what? Fear? Relief? Anticipation?

When Luisa was younger, before her skirts were lengthened and her hair arranged in elaborate knots and loops under a jeweled tiara, her father used to take her out in the Schweinwald to stalk deer. They would set out at dawn, while the grass still breathed out rings of silver mist, and the thud of the horses’ hooves rattled the autumn silence. In those quiet mornings, Luisa learned how to hold herself still, how to be patient, how to listen and watch. She would study her father’s movements and replicate them. She was Diana, she was the virgin huntress, wise and ruthless.

Until that October day when her horse had gone lame and she had fallen behind, unnoticed, and the familiar trees and vines of the Schweinwald had become suddenly and terrifyingly unfamiliar. She had hallooed softly. She had whistled. She had called out in mounting alarm, panic mottling her brain, and as she stood there with her hands gripped around the loops of her horses’s reins, a black bear had wandered into view among the trees and came to a stop about twelve feet away.

They had stared at one another, she and that bear. She knew, of course, that you weren’t supposed to stare. You were supposed to look away and back off slowly. But she couldn’t remember all those rules of engagement. She couldn’t leave her lame horse. She had nothing to fall back on, no rear position in which to shelter. So she stared back, for what seemed like an hour and was probably less than a minute.

She still remembered the absolute blackness of the bear’s fur, except for a small patch of rufous brown where a miraculous ray of sunlight penetrated the forest canopy. She remembered the dark watchfulness of its eyes, the fingerprint texture of its round nose. She remembered the syrupy scent of the rotting leaves, the chilling handprint of the air on her cheek.

She remembered thinking,
I am going to die, or I am going to live. Which is it?

“Sir? Are you going to see my father?”

Luisa opened her eyes and straightened away from the door.

A young dark-haired boy stood before her, examining her with curious black eyes so exactly like those of the Earl of Somerton, her heart jumped an extra beat for good measure.

“I beg your pardon?” she said.

“My father.” The boy nodded at the door. “Are you going in to see him? Or has he tossed you out?”

“I . . . I have just finished my interview with his lordship.” Luisa heard herself stammering. Children made her nervous, with their all-seeing eyes and their mysterious minds, occupied with infant imaginings Luisa could no longer even attempt to guess. And this one was worse than most, his pale face poised upward with unsmiling curiosity, his eyes far too reminiscent of that pair she’d just escaped. She scrambled for something to say. “You are Lord Somerton’s son?”

The boy nodded. “Philip. Lord Kildrake,” he added importantly.

“I see.”

“I guess he’s tossed you out, then. Well, buck up. That’s what Mama says. Buck up and try again later, when he’s in a good mood.”

“I see.”

Young Lord Kildrake sighed and stuck his finger in his hair, twirling it into a thoughtful knot. His gaze shifted to the door behind her. “The trouble is, he never is. In a good mood.”

From the entrance hall came the sound of feet on marble, of the butler issuing quiet orders. A woman’s voice called out. The boy’s mother, probably. Lady Somerton, summoning her son.

He never is. In a good mood.

In the end, that long-ago day, Luisa had lived, but not because she had stared the bear down. The thunder of avenging hoofbeats had filled the forest, and Prince Rudolf had appeared on his white charger. He had risen in his stirrups, dropped his reins, lifted his rifle, and shot the bear dead without a break in the horse’s stride.

Luisa looked down at the little boy. He had lost interest in her now. He let out another long sigh, turned, and ambled back down the hallway, still twirling his hair.

Her father was dead. Her husband was dead. Her sisters, her governess, all scattered to the winds of England.

She was alone.

Luisa straightened away from the door and shook out her shirt cuffs. She had better get on with it, then, hadn’t she?