Leslie Lafoy (11 page)

Don’t pick a Brunhilda.
Not on his life. His tastes were more toward petite, well-shaped blond modistes with earnest eyes and inviting smiles.

“What?”

He blinked and, knowing better, gave her another, more mundane truth. “Who in their right mind is going to
give a man like me, with my background, in my financial circumstances, both a daughter and a small fortune?”

“Someone who wants to say to his friends, ‘Can’t possibly go punting this weekend, Charles. My daughter—the Duchess of Ryland, you know—is having a house party and the Prince of Poofland has asked me to teach him some of the finer points of cribbage.”

“Not likely,” he countered with a snort. “And the crowning glory on all this is that in the very next session of Parliament, I get to park my arse in the House of Lords and pretend that I don’t see the jabbing elbows or hear the snickers of contempt.”

She sipped at her wine, her gaze distant. “Go ahead,” he challenged to bring her attention back to him. “Tell me it could be worse.”

“Well . . . ”

“It can’t.”

“As the recognized daughters of the late duke,” she began slowly, “will there be some expectation of presenting us at court? I’m certainly no authority on these sorts of things,” she went on, “but isn’t being presented a requirement for attending all the balls and affairs where one shops for a suitable spouse?”

He blinked as the reality fluttered down through the haze of wine and slowly sank into what was left of his brain. She’d be presented, back out of the royal presence, and the bidding would begin right then and there. They’d trample each other to get to her. She’d have her choice from among every eligible bachelor in the realm. But only if he could exercise some self-control between now and then. If he couldn’t, she’d be a pariah.

“Well,” she said in that half-offended, half-amused tone of hers, “I don’t think I’d do that badly.”

“I was picturing Simone meeting the queen,” he lied.

Her eyes went wide. “Oh, dear God in heaven,” she laughed, holding out her glass. “More wine, please. Hurry.”

He poured for her, knowing even as he did that he should be refusing to do so. He’d had way too much to trust his judgment to control his behavior and she seemed to be rapidly approaching the same point. Things could so easily go to hell in a handbasket from here. It was time to declare dinner done and get a thick wooden door—with a heavy lock—between them.

“You lied to me this morning.”

“In the grand scheme of things,” he countered, “I hardly think the footman ruse was all that horrible.”

“Not that,” she said with a smile. “You lied about my father having a change of heart. You said he regretted not acknowledging us before now.”

This morning had been another lifetime. Everything had changed since then. “I thought it was the kinder course,” he admitted. “Would you have preferred to know then that he was willing to recognize you only because he needed money?”

“Your motives aren’t any different than his were.”

“In the strictest sense, probably not,” he allowed. “But in my defense, I inherited the three of you along with all the other disasters and I’m trying to do the best I can with the situation. For all of us. Yes, I’ll get badly needed money for finishing out the process Geoffrey started. But it’s not as though you and Simone and Fiona won’t benefit from the effort, as well.”

“True. But please promise me that, in the future, you won’t keep the truth from me in an attempt to protect my feelings. I’d rather be wounded than ignorant.”

“If that’s the way you want it to be,” he offered, dully
wondering if he hadn’t just committed a huge mistake. She’d be far more than wounded and hardly innocent if he were ever honest about what he really wanted to do with her.

“And I’m not a disaster,” she protested brightly. “I may have a lot to learn about all the social rules and such, but I’m hardly a dimwit. I’m perfectly capable of learning whatever I must.”

Oh, she’d be a most able student. The things he’d like . . . He cleared his throat and dragged in a deep breath. It was most definitely time to call an end to the evening. He pasted a smile on his face and firmly said, “I have no doubts whatsoever about either your intelligence, or your ability to dazzle everyone when we return to London for the Season.”

Caroline sat back in her chair, stunned and confused and hurt—deeply hurt—by his sudden shift to the distance of formality. “What’s worrying you?” she asked. “And don’t lie to me. I can see it in your eyes. I hear it in the way you’re suddenly speaking.”

“It is the fog of too much to drink,” he said, rising from the table and refusing to look at her.

“It is not!” she countered, angry that he’d think she was so stupid as not to notice, so pliant that she’d accept his lame explanation. “And you promised, not a full minute ago, that you’d be honest with me.”

“There is a line that separates honesty from foolishness,” he countered, coming around to stand behind her chair. “You can be angry with me if you like, but I know better than to cross it. As your guardian, it is my obligation to exercise good judgment.”

“Not fair!” she declared, throwing her serviette on the table.

“I know,” he agreed as he pulled out the chair and she stood. He bowed briefly, stiffly, and added, “If you are ready to retire for the evening, I will escort you to your room.”

If he thought he was going to get away with commanding her . . .

  Six  

DRAYTON HELD HER ELBOW LOOSELY AS THEY MADE
their way down the upstairs corridor, moving to the safety of their respective rooms. She’d made it abundantly clear by her frosty silence that she was not happy. And he was . . . He was well beyond miserable. Everything between his upper thighs and his waist was as hard as a rock and straining for release. Part of his wine-numbed brain was congratulating him on doing the right thing despite his inebriated and agitated state. The other part of it alternated between pointing out that being able to ignore good judgment was why one got inebriated in the first place, and begging him to give up pretending that he was so frigging virtuous.

As they stopped before the door of her room, he released his hold on her and stepped back. She looked up at him, studying his face in the dim light of a wall lamp. Her lips were parted so sweetly, so invitingly. Her breasts rose and fell on quick shallow breaths.

“Good night, Caroline,” he choked out, offering her another polite bow. “Pleasant dreams.”

She didn’t say anything in reply. Which was probably for the best, he told himself as he turned crisply and headed for his own room.

“Drayton?”

He looked down at the doorknob in his hand and debated what to do. And just as she had earlier that evening, she took the decision from him.

“Please tell me what’s bothering you,” she said softly as she came to stand at his side.

He didn’t dare look back down at her; his resolve was tattering by the second. Staring straight ahead at the door, he tightened his hold on the knob, deliberately turned it and pushed the panel open, saying crisply, “Good night, Caroline. Pleasant dreams.”

He had one foot in his room when she caught him by the sleeve of his jacket. “It’s been a perfectly lovely evening,” she said, the low volume of her voice doing nothing to disguise the strength of her determination. “Don’t you
dare
spoil it by being imperial.”

He blinked.
Dare?
Slowly, he looked over his shoulder at her. “Pardon?”

“I don’t much care for Lord Ryland,” she answered, still holding him by the sleeve. “He lacks a sense of humor and goes about making declarations as though what others think or want or feel don’t matter. I much prefer the company of Drayton Mackenzie. He’s an infinitely more attractive man.”

He couldn’t decide if running away would be an act of cowardice or of wisdom. “He’s not a very restrained fellow, though,” he replied, unable to get his feet to move. “He has a tendency to act before he thinks.”

“That’s a good part of his appeal.”

“It also makes him a dangerous man.”

“Another factor in his favor,” she countered. “Lord Ryland is terribly, terribly boring.”

Caroline silently sighed in relief as the tension in his
body eased just as it had in the dining room before their meal. From that experience she knew that he’d come to a decision. She searched his eyes, hoping to see a sign that he might relent and tear down the barriers he’d so suddenly put back up between them.

“Boring,” he said, cocking a brow. “Ryland’s boring.”

There was an undercurrent in his voice, a slowly building certainty in his gaze that sent her heartbeat skittering. “Yes, he is,” she said, holding her ground, knowing what she was unleashing. “It would never occur to him to be the least bit honest with anyone about anything. It’s all appearances and façades with him. It’s rather pathetic, actually.”

He barely nodded and eased the door wider, holding her gaze as he leaned closer and whispered, “Caroline, you’re treading the edge.”

“I am well aware of that. Honesty cuts both ways and I’m quite willing to take the risk.”

“Really.” He let go of the doorknob and reached out to slowly trace the curve of her ear with his fingertip. “Do you have any idea of what the risks are?”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes, savoring the pleasure of his deliberate touch. It had been so very long that she’d forgotten how wonderful it felt to have her senses brimming.

“Drayton isn’t a very honorable man, you know,” he continued, trailing his fingertip down the curve of her jaw, down her throat and to the swell of her breast. “It’s that lack of restraint of his.”

And the wine, she knew. How something could make all the world fuzzy while, at the same time, so sweetly sharpen sensation . . . It was marvelous. She might regret it all tomorrow, but tonight she was going to enjoy being a woman.

“Stop him, Caroline,” he whispered against her ear, slipping his arm around her waist. “Before it’s too late.”

If he thought advancing the seduction was going to frighten her off, he needed to be informed of just how high the stakes were. She turned into him and slid her hands up the lapels of his jacket. “If he stops, I’ll rip his—”

Drayton laughed and pivoted, wheeling them both into his room and kicking the door closed behind them. “Unman me,
ma petite,
” he said, grinning down into her upturned face as he skimmed his hands down her back in search of buttons, “and you’ll . . . ”

The threat was lost, swept aside by the realization that getting her stripped down and on the bed wasn’t going to be accomplished as easily and quickly as he wanted. Having spent the day frustrated to one degree or another, and now being so close to relieving it only to be thwarted . . . “Where the hell are the buttons on this thing?”

She chuckled and stepped out of his loose embrace, saying sweetly, “Allow me.”

She lifted her left arm slightly, reached across herself with her right, and nimbly began undoing a row of tiny royal blue buttons that ran down her side. Buttons he’d noticed, but had assumed were there for the sole purpose of drawing panting male attention to the alluring curve.

But the dress didn’t open as the buttons parted with their holes. “What the . . . ?” he muttered, fascinated as the front ruching of her gown slipped down as a single, separate panel. And beneath it, hidden until that moment, was the line of blue satin-covered buttons he’d been looking for along her spine.

And the feminine form that ruching had hidden and those pretty buttons accentuated . . . It was a glorious sight to behold. His jaw dropped. Not that he cared.

“Women who don’t have maids to help them dress,” she explained, unbuttoning the lowest one in the line, “have to be able to do and undo the buttons on their own. It’s much easier to reach them when they’re in the front.”

“Let me,” he said, gently moving her hands aside.

“If you insist.”

Oh, he did. She pressed her arms into her sides to hold the dress in place as he worked his way up, his fingers nimble and efficient and seemingly detached from his conscious mind—what there was of it. He was nearing the top when what he’d been seeing finally registered in his brain. There weren’t any petticoats tied about her waist. He glanced down at the opening. There were petticoats, but they’d been sewn into the dress itself so that they and the outer fabric went on and came off as one piece. “How ingenious,” he marveled.
And considerate of a man’s desperation.