Rules of Surrender (20 page)

He leaned forward as if he still feared she would bolt. ”Everything, I would think.“

She looked down at her fingers, and absentmindedly straightened their clawlike curve. ”I was an only child. I was very spoiled. I had a nursery, a nanny, a governess and many toys all to myself. The corridors of Porterbridge Hall were mine to run through. The lands were mine to ride my pony across.“ Her youth had truly been a golden time, and the only way she could talk about those years was in a monotone, shutting herself off from the memories by sheer determination. Because when she allowed herself to remember… She would not remember. ”Papa and Mama were killed by a lightning bolt when I was eleven.“

Wynter tried to take her hand, but she flinched away from him. ”You want to know. You can know. Just don’t touch me.“

He didn’t like that, she could see. His wide brow puckered and the skin around his scar turned white.

But as she suspected, he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize this engaging gossip, or at least not until she had told every last juicy morsel.

She held his gaze until he nodded and sat back, then she continued, ”The land wasn’t mine anymore. The manor wasn’t mine anymore. My uncle and his family moved in, and there were so many of them. They said I didn’t need the nursery, I wasn’t a baby, and they placed their infants in the cradle where I’d rocked my dolls. The older ones invaded the playroom. My uncle said he didn’t need to buy toys, because I had so many. My nanny resigned, and my governess. Uncle didn’t want to pay them more for caring for and teaching all his children than they had been paid for just me. I had to share my bedchamber with two of my cousins. One wet the bed. They fought. There was no place I could go to be alone, and no one cared for me.“ That sounded like self-pity, so she added in explanation, ”Why would they? They didn’t even care for each other.“

Wynter stripped off his gloves and tossed them aside. ”What did you do?“

”Do?“

”Did you throw tantrums? Did you demand your toys back?“

”No. Of course not. I was so bewildered… I look back and I think, poor child. So confused. Just on the brink of womanhood and no one—“ She snapped her mouth shut. She didn’t want to give him insight into the troubled girl she had been. He would enjoy it too much, this retelling of her pain. They all enjoyed it, all the seekers after scandal.

”You were frightened.“

His soft tone and kind eyes couldn’t fool her. This was an inquisition of the most brutal kind. ”Of every-thing,“ she agreed harshly. ”I think that annoyed the whole family. They’d shout, stomp around, kick each other and fight. I didn’t understand that kind of display. I didn’t know how to act like that.“

”Do you understand now?“

”I have lived with many different families. Some are happy, some are not. Some are boisterous, some are not. Some make it their mission to make each other miserable—like my uncle’s. I don’t
understand,
but I know all that is true.“

”I think my family is happy,“ he said reflectively. ”At least, my mother is happy to have us home, and the children will be happy when they’ve adjusted. Don’t you think so, Lady Miss Charlotte?“

”I think your children are charming.“

”Don’t you want to know if I’m happy?“

She smiled, but it was a difficult, unwieldy curving of the lips. ”You must be happy, my lord. You must be positively ecstatic.“

He didn’t like her sarcasm, and his accent grew pronounced. ”Not… yet.“

Her toes curled in her shoes, and reluctantly she practiced circumspection, telling herself that was wise, for he was still a barbarian. ”I tried to make myself invisible. I did whatever my uncle and aunt told me, but the other children used to get me in trouble when they could. So Uncle would yell at me, and I hated that. The problem is he looks so much like Papa. But Papa was Papa. He loved my mother and he loved me. If the present Earl of Porterbridge loves anyone, he keeps it well hidden. He has the spirit of a raging toothache.“

She finished speaking, and Wynter realized with a jolt she had no intention of telling him the rest of the story. He was stunned. He was most empathetic and insightful, and she was talking to
him,
the mate of her soul, the man who would wed her. She didn’t know that yet, she ought to know he could be trusted.

Nevertheless, he would not reproach her. He knew she had been hurt—everything in her contained manner warned him that this was a woman who had been maltreated again and again, until every kind word was suspect. ”Your story is much as I thought.“

”Is it?“ she asked crisply.

Undoubtedly she was annoyed with him, for she guarded her privacy most assiduously. But when she heard how her tale affected him and what a favor he would confer on her, she would be soothed. ”This also tells me I am right in my plans.“

”What plans are those?“

”We shall marry.“ His pronouncement left her, he noted with pleasure, speechless. Also immobile and wide-eyed with the honor done her. He kindly continued to give her a chance to recover. ”You are suitable. You’re well-bred, you’re handsome, you’re exceptionally courteous“—he paused, but she didn’t smile— ”and you are in need of a husband.“

She didn’t exclaim, or thank him, or throw herself into his arms in an ecstasy of joy. Perhaps she didn’t truly understand, or perhaps she thought him indifferent or uncaring about the attraction she felt for him. So he clarified. ”Also, we both feel desire for each other. Our bedsport will be most satisfying.“

Now she responded. Color swept into her face and she lowered her head like a camel about to charge. ”My… lord.“ She spaced the words carefully, as if he might be unsure of his title. ”I am not in need of a husband.“

He chuckled. ”Do not be absurd.“

The rim of her bonnet began trembling, and the trembling worked its way down her arms to her fingers.

Alarmed, Wynter tried to gather both her hands in his to chafe them.

In a tantrumlike motion as unrestrained as any Leila had ever produced, she knocked him away. With a staccato delivery, she said, ”I have heard your speech before.“ She took a gulp of air. ”I have been told before that I was suitable, well-bred and virtuous, and therefore the privilege of marriage would be conferred on me despite my poverty, and I would have the chance to express my gratitude and my undying devotion every day for the rest of my life.“

The words she spoke forced him to realize he had expressed himself badly. ”I would expect—“

”I don’t care what you expect.“ She wasn’t shouting or in any way sounding less than civil, but that shaking continued as if emotions bubbled within her that she couldn’t contain. ”When I was seventeen, I was an obedient young female who would do as she was told, even if it meant she would be a nothing, the keeper of an empty place men call a wife. But I changed my destiny.“ Her eyes froze him with their intensity. ”You can’t delude me, my lord. You know everything. Whoever told you my story wouldn’t leave out the best part.“

Trying to express his sincere sympathy seemed the only way to calm her. ”All parts seem to me to be a tragedy.“

But his sympathy seemed only to insult her. ”Not this part.“ Her trembling halted. ”This part was a triumph, because I… walked… away. I left my uncle’s house with a single bag and caught a public conveyance to London.“

He winced. To think of Charlotte at seventeen, alone on a coach and traveling to the city, terrified him. Even though he knew her story ended well—or would once she accepted his proposal—he wanted to protect her from the terror and loneliness she had suffered. Such was the influence she had on him.

”I went to the house of a female acquaintance,“ she said, ”a commoner who wished badly to have her son become part of society. She hired me. Hired me for the same reasons I had been suitable wife material. By the time she heard the tale of my rebellion, her son was well on his way to being acceptable, and she allowed me to finish the job.“

The tightness in his gut loosened a little. ”She was kind, then.“

”She was a swine who lowered my wages, citing as a reason the price of scandal.“

He had wanted Charlotte to tell him this, to share the trauma of her every experience so he could assure her of his tolerance. Yet for reasons that he didn’t understand, she was not responding with the relaxation of her ever-present caution.

When Barakah had told him about women, he warned him of this, too. He had said that sometimes women failed to grasp that their man had only their interests foremost in his heart. Wynter had never personally experienced such behavior, so he had discounted it as a myth. Now he sent an apology to Barakah, who as he sat on the right hand of Allah was no doubt laughing at Wynter’s folly. ”I am grieved that your situation at that time was not ideal, and I still grieve that your situations since have left you unhappy.“

”I am not unhappy,“ she said coldly.

He ignored that, as it deserved. ”But I am a man.

You are a woman, and you must trust me to know what is best for you.“

Her shaking began again.

”You will wed me. It is the right and proper thing to do.“

”I will not walk up the aisle even if it means security and approval from the society which has scorned me.“ Her vehemence was all the more convincing for being subdued. ”I have stood alone for nine years, my lord. I will stand alone until I die.“

He studied her in astonishment. ”Are you refusing me?“

”This is not a refusal, my lord, this is indifference.“

He allowed her to place her hand on the door and open it. The step had been put below, and she used it to descend as the footmen rushed to assist her.

Wynter waited until she stood on the ground before he called, ”Regardless of your indignation and your… er… indifference, Lady Miss Charlotte, I think you love me.“

She turned her head toward him, but he couldn’t see past the rim of her bonnet. ”I think, Lord Ruskin, that you do not know what love is.“

CHAPTER 18

Love
him
. Charlotte headed down the carriage way for a walk to the far reaches of the estate. Toward the oak tree in the meadow. Or the bench in the formal garden. Or to the Americas, although the Atlantic would present a bit of a challenge for a woman no taller than she was.

Yes, she should have gone to the nursery, sought out the children and proceeded about the business of being a governess as if nothing untoward had happened.

Nothing
had
happened.

In the inner reaches of her mind she had been prepared to be disappointed in Wynter. She was. Her infatuation was over. She would proceed as if their brief interlude had never happened.

Love him.
As if she would love a man like him. A man who had abandoned his mother, his country and his manners. Who did he think he was, some pasha too lofty for ethics? She couldn’t love a man like him.

She found herself swinging her arms and putting each foot before the other in excessively firm movements. Movements that, if nature had comprehended her mood, would have shaken the earth.

Dear heavens, why had she told him the truth of her life in such detail and with such passion? She knew how to relate her story—in a dry tone, as if the past had ceased to wound her and she didn’t care that she lived in exile from the place where she’d grown up. When she pretended indifference, she at least saved her pride. Now she had no pride. And he thought she loved him!

At least when she’d refused that first proposal, her suitor hadn’t accused her of loving him. Indeed, he would have been surprised and offended if she’d offered such emotion. And she never would have. Even if he had gone to the trouble of courting her, she’d had too much sense
then
to imagine the courtship to be prompted by anything other than expediency.

Love him.
Wretched Wynter thought she loved him. Probably he had proposed marriage with no intention of going through the ceremony and every intention of performing the consummation. But Charlotte was no dewy-eyed fool. No, she was too old and wise to fall for that hoary trick.

”Miss Dalrumple?“ the hostler called as she hurried past the stables.

Reluctantly she halted. ”Yes, Fletcher?“

”Need’t‘ talk’t’ ye.“

She didn’t want to speak with him. She didn’t want to speak with anyone, especially not someone of the male gender, but Fletcher was a man of few demands and fewer words, so when he communicated it was with purpose. ”Is there some service I can render to you?“ she asked.

”Me’t‘ ye.“ The knotted, gnarled hostler gestured toward the fenced stableyard with his unlit pipe. ”D’ye know th’ little girlie is ridin‘ yon mare?“

”The little girlie?“ Charlotte was bewildered. ”Not… Lady Leila?“

”Th’ very same.“

”That’s… that’s not possible.“ Charlotte strode to the paddock. The horse he indicated was no pony, but fifteen hands high and sleek with the spirits of a healthy young animal. ”When?“

Fletcher had been around for so many years he knew she wasn’t really expressing disbelief, only consternation. Speaking as calmly as if he’d been gentling a horse, he said, ”Knew someone was ridin‘ Bethia. Saw th’ evidence. Didn’t know who or how. Stableboy told he’d seen a teeny sprite who flitted along on fairy wings.“

”What nonsense!“ Leila was no sprite, and for a moment Charlotte’s spirits rose. Perhaps the hostler was mistaken.

”Aye. Seen me share o‘ sprites, don’t none o’ them ride worth a damn. Beggin‘ yer pardon, m’lady. So I kept watch.“ Fletcher placed his pipe between his lips and sucked on it as if it were lit.

”You’re sure it’s Leila?“

”Skinny girl, six hands high, good bones, nice mane. Aye, it’s her.“

Charlotte placed her hand on her racing heart. What if Leila had been hurt while riding, and no one had known where she had gone? At the thought of the child lying helpless, unconscious or crying in pain, Charlotte had to lean hard against the white-painted fence.

Fletcher watched her until she’d recovered her first fright. ”She’s ridin’ after supper when ye’ve given yer charge into th‘ hands o’ th‘ nursemaid. Best chide Grania.“

”I would suppose.“ Charlotte narrowed her eyes at the hostler. ”You’ve stopped Leila, of course.“