A Dangerous Beauty (12 page)

She had given in to her cowardice then.

But now she was older, perhaps not wiser, but she knew heartbreak and humiliation could not kill you. It only taught you how to stand a little straighter, and smile a little wider, and pretend you’re slightly deaf or perfectly unconcerned with what life drags into your dish.

A line of ladies dressed in mourning snaked through the crowd and mounted the stairs, Luc St. Aubyn escorting the countess at the tail end.

Grace Sheffey’s pale, regal splendor radiated from her expression. “Rosamunde, do join us. Her Grace has asked us to perform an impromptu short concert during the breakfast. And since we cannot find your sister, we’ve nominated you as the primary performer.”

They had taken pity on her. But compassion, especially
his
pity, was worse than the crowd’s loathing. She must pretend she was unaffected by it all. She must turn the moment.

Rosamunde forced her mouth to work and whispered, “For the love of Christ…” She stopped and looked at the duke, trying desperately to form a smile but failing.

His expression held a question.

“Isn’t that what you really wanted to say? Don’t you loathe music?” she asked quietly without a hint of humor.

Elizabeth Ashburton, holding Georgiana Wilde’s arm, burst out laughing.

His mouth twitched. “Why, Mrs. Baird, I actually like music, when it is played well. But you know I never,
ever
, blaspheme”—he cleared his throat—“without good reason.”

“Luc,” Ata said, “you always blaspheme. Who knows where you learned to take the Lord’s name in vain.”

“It’s not always in vain. I always ask with great hope, actually. Although it is rarely answered the way I like.”

Ata’s cough failed to hide her giggle. “By the by, you’re standing on my gown.”

“No, it’s your gown that has a nasty habit of attaching itself to my boot,” he said, lifting his Hessian, tasseled with black ribbons instead of the usual white ones.

They were good at dissembling, all of them. Rosamunde clenched her fingers so tightly she thought her nails would perforate the tips of her old gloves. She did it to stop herself from melting into tears of gratitude. She was very beholden to each and every one of them.

She bowed her head.

Ata came around behind her and whispered in her ear, “No, no, you mustn’t look down. Look up and stare at them like before. Shame them all. Now then,” she said louder so most of the crowd could hear, “I do declare, there are some people here who I distinctly don’t remember inviting to the wedding breakfast.”

The crowd’s babble of wagging tongues stopped abruptly.

“Luc, dear, you do have a copy of the list, don’t you?”

“No, but I’ve no doubt we’ll be in possession of an interesting version of it by the time we arrive at Amberley,” he rumbled loudly.

“Have I ever told you how much I appreciate how well prepared you always are, dearest?” Ata said, smiling up at her tall, darkly handsome grandson.

“That’s what all the ladies say, Ata.”

“Oh! For the love of…” Ata stopped when the widows began to giggle. “Now see here, it’s perfectly obvious he taught me this oath, not the other way around. Why, it’s scandalous what I must endure at my age,” she harrumphed through her thinly disguised smile.

“And that age would be?” he asked without a hint of a smile.

“Old enough to cross your name off the list too, you insolent puppy.”

They returned to Amberley in separate carriages and Rosamunde was glad. Sarah Winters, the eldest and wisest widow in the club, held her hand after the door closed.

“You know, Rosamunde, it is said that those who must endure the most early in life will enjoy even more the earthly joys to be found in later years.”

“And has that happened for you?”

The beginning of a few very faint lines edged the paper-thin skin surrounding the widow’s eyes, suggesting she was nearing her fourth decade. “Why, no.” She paused. “But there is still time, I think.”

Rosamunde squeezed her hand. “I am sure of it.” And she believed it, for the goodness of this lady was palpable. If anyone deserved never-ending joy it was Sarah, a lady whose husband had never returned from Wellington’s war with France.

Elizabeth Ashburton and Georgiana Wilde sat opposite them. “Where is your sister?” asked Georgiana. “I thought she was coming with you.”

Rosamunde shook her head. “I don’t know. I thought she had gone with all of you. I”—she looked at her hands—“I had not meant to come.”

Georgiana patted her knee. “You showed great courage. I couldn’t have done it.”

Rosamunde ignored the compliment. Her stomach was still so tightly clenched she felt ill. But she could appear normal for as long as it took. “I hope Sylvia didn’t go out walking to look for me. I told her I wasn’t to go.”

“Well, there is one other person who was disappointed when she didn’t appear,” Elizabeth said, not even trying to hide her grin.

Sarah cast a sharp look at Elizabeth. “Now don’t stir up hopes.”

“Why it’s as plain as the love on the groom’s face that Sir Rawleigh is besotted with Lady Sylvia.”

Rosamunde quickly looked from one lady to the other. “I do hope you’re right. I hope it with all my heart.”

“We all do, my dear, we all do. She’s not the only one I’m kneeling down for every night,” Sarah finished with a wink.

The dip and sway of the carriage signaled the last bridge before the turn into Amberley’s vast drive, lined with stately oaks whose roots were crowned with thick periwinkle. The sight of Amberley never failed to awe Rosamunde. It was simply the most beautiful place she had ever seen. It was as if the architects had had divine inspiration in creating such perfection of symmetry and design.

What she would give to jump from this elegant carriage and run behind the mansion to the kitchen door and beyond to the lovely bedchamber she occupied. Her head ached and her eyes burned from the effort to remain composed. She just wasn’t sure she could keep up this façade of collected behavior much longer. And she was certain she could not face her father again if he chose to honor the duchess’s invitation.

But escape was not in the cards. A horde of guests buzzed about the entrance when they arrived, their carriage being one of the last to do so.

Chastity Clarendon took up her arm and her brother the vicar took up her other. Wedged between the two of them as she was, no one dared utter a word against her. Oh, but it all felt so false. And planned.

The duke had surely designed this tactic during his return in another carriage. As if she could not stand up to the humiliation by herself. Hadn’t she been doing that alone for eight years? He obviously thought her a complete weakling.

But then, wasn’t she? She’d avoided situations like this at every opportunity.

A tide of guests swept forward into the mansion, pulling everyone with it. She was forced to pretend to nibble ham and slivered eggs on toast while she endured inane triviality. Mrs. Simpson simpered about the new inn at Land’s End. Mr. Canberry moaned about rain and haymaking. Agatha Fitzsimmons complained about the price of tea, and then, well, then
it
happened.

Auggie Phelps’s fiancé, Baron von Olteda, from Hanover, cornered her near the ladies’ withdrawing room. Of course no one was about, and of course he took advantage of the fact, sweeping her into a small morning room with a request for her help. He stood before her, falsely modest in his puffed-out Hussar uniform of latterly overalls and dark blue coat with scarlet facings and yellow lace.

“Mrs. Baird,” his eyes appraised her shrewdly, “I understand you might be searching for protection.”

“Protection?” she whispered in disbelief.

“Uh, or I think the Brits call it ‘a protector.’ Da?”

She could feel the blood drain from her face and moved toward the door. “I have no idea what you are talking about, sir.”

His iron arm appeared in front of her before she
reached the door. “But Mrs. Baird, you cannot wish to be here. I can offer you protection”—he winked—“and seclusion.”

“Allow me to pass, sir.” It was not a question, but a demand. She tried to keep the wobble from her voice.

“Don’t you want to hear the terms? I promise to hide you away in great luxury. No one will insult or pity you.”

She had always thought him a great lummox. But she had underestimated him. He knew just what to say to completely demoralize her. She looked down at his hands and noticed they were just like her husband’s—sausagelike fingers with thick hair sprouting on the backs, the nails bitten down to the quick. Revulsion swept through her.

“Mrs. Baird, or may I call you
my Rosebud
? I will pamper you, and dress you in the finest London can offer and you will…well,
you will pamper me
.”

His sly innuendo sent a shudder straight down her spine. She thought she really might be ill. She pushed away his arm and continued another step. “No, sir,” she said, more firmly than she felt. She was lost, floating in a sea of panic.

He grabbed her at the last moment and pushed her against the wall, his barrel-shaped chest grounding into hers. His hands roughly grabbed at her breasts, and she fought against him, against an unbearably familiar sense of violation and horror. She had thought she would never ever have to feel or see hands like that touching her again. Grabbing her everywhere with complete disregard to her wishes, her words, her pain.
She hated the touch of a man’s naked, moist hands. Hated it with a passion. She had wordlessly endured it out of duty, hiding her pain, holding back tears and her wishes for many years. But for the first time she was allowed to fight back.

She bit him. Sunk her teeth into one of his fat fingers as hard as she could and then jerked her knee to his unmentionables.

He howled. “Why you little—”

He was cut off by a hideous bone-crunching sound, and suddenly, his body was lying half sprawled by the door.

The duke, wearing the most murderously angry expression imaginable, stood in the baron’s place, his stance wide and his hands fisted.

He glared at her, then grabbed the baron by his facings and hauled him to his feet. The man appeared barely conscious. “You,” the duke said in ominous low tones, “are an insult to humanity. I shall give you one minute to get the hell out of here and take your deserving bride with you. If I ever see you again, I will stuff that unearned gold braid down your throat to your aching ballocks.”

She couldn’t deny the tiny thrill she felt at his words until he turned to look at her. The glittering anger in his face would scare the soul from the devil.

“Would you like to kick him before I throw him out?” he asked softly.

“No,” she whispered.

“Then I shall do it for you.”

“No, please, no.”

It was as if he couldn’t hear her. With vicious kicks to the stout man’s knees, he brought the man down again. And he would have continued if Rosamunde hadn’t used all her strength to pull him toward the door. He was like a wild animal with a taste of blood. She had no doubt that he was capable of beating the man past the floorboards into an early grave.

As they were about to pass over the threshold, the baron had the bad sense to utter one last parting shot. “Your husband told everyone about you,
Rosie
. You’ll be sorry you didn’t accept my offer. Others might not be so appealing.”

The duke swore violently and went back to deliver a
coup de grâce
, rendering the stout man insensible and a whisker away from something altogether closer to his final resting place.

But he couldn’t erase the words the man had dared utter. His words were engraved on her mind, swirling amid the other harsh reality of her father’s refusal to acknowledge her. She could not maintain her charade any longer.

She stared into the floating dust particles in the ray of light from the window and knew that if she moved or said a word she would break down—something she had never, ever dared to do. She might not be able to reverse a descent into madness.

He took two long strides toward her and gently grasped both her arms. “Come. Come with me.”

She couldn’t move or she would turn into dust. And so with one long movement, he swept her up into his arms and carried her from the room.

Intimacy,
n.
A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.

—The Devil’s Dictionary, A. Bierce

I
f there was one thing Luc knew how to do, it was how to accomplish an action in the most direct, precise manner possible without wasted motion or time. Within moments of leaving the disastrous scene, he had her bundled inside a closed carriage with Brownie driving them to the port. He had to get her away from Amberley and all these damn people.

She hadn’t said a word as they crisscrossed through the sandy lanes. She had stared out the window, her eyes dry and unseeing. She hadn’t even seemed curious to know where they were going.

For him, there had been no thought to the matter. Like a homing pigeon, he had ordered the direction
to his cutter. A place that would promise protection. A place he could completely control.

He thought he would have to carry her again when she took so long to descend from the carriage. But, suddenly, ignoring his hand, she stepped down. Before he could say a word, she walked past him, past the smaller docked boats, and onto
Caro’s Heart
without looking back.

He nodded to Brownie, who was arranging for stabling and then boarded the only place that held any balance for him. Perhaps it was because there was no equilibrium here, the scenery and the situation changed each time he set out.

“Cap’n.” His three deckhands greeted him simultaneously.

“Set a course for St. Clement’s Isle. We’ll anchor there till…” he did the timetable quickly in his head, “three o’clock and then return to port. We sail immediately.”

The deckhands didn’t ask questions, and he didn’t have to wonder about supplies or readiness. Their fidelity, proven in bloodshed and in deathly storms, was the reason they worked for him.

He shaded his brow from the sun and watched her on the opposite railing, staring westward. What was he going to do about her? She wasn’t like the other widows Ata had taken into her protection. The others had been easily led to new lives, either remarrying or finding employment, reuniting with family or settling in obscure cottages Brownie arranged. But Rosamunde? He couldn’t envision a happy future for her.
She would never remarry, had vehemently said so a dozen times, had no acceptable family, and was an obvious target for men like the baron. And like a sleek falcon, she would be miserable if her wings were clipped. She would wither away as a governess or companion hidden on the edge of nowhere. She was meant for adventure, to soar with excitement.

She was a hopeless case. A first. He shook his head and went to her, wondering what on earth he would say.

“You’ve discovered my weaknesses,” he said quietly just behind her. “Ladies who do not cry when they are supposed to and wounded young midshipmen who do.”

He continued when she didn’t respond. “And then, of course, there’s the matter of my deplorable
temper
.” He looked down the slope of her delicate neck and shoulders held ramrod straight. “Like father, like son, everyone says. There was a reason my father christened me Lucifer, after the devil himself.”

She twisted her head to glance at him. “You are truly the best man I have ever known.”

He laughed harshly. “That says little for your circle of acquaintances.”

She faced the horizon again and he could see her hands gripping the railing so tightly her knuckles were white.

“Shall I tell you the difference between your temper and my husband’s serene nature?”

He froze, not quite sure he wanted to hear what she had to say.

“I’ve seen your infamous anger precisely one time, when I forced you to stop pounding a man I wished to thrash myself.”

He watched her swallow convulsively.

“A collected nature is when a man controls your every movement during the day and then takes pleasure in his right to enter your bedchamber at night, stare at your body, and touch…” She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes. “…and touch you with his hands. And all the while he knows, without you saying a word, that this…this invasion is his to command, his to insist upon while you must lie there violated to the depths of your soul by his hushed insults and of course the painful union. Yet he never raises his voice, nor does he beat you. He just kills your will one night at a time. And after he leaves you, you are faced with the knowledge that every night for the rest of your life you will listen for that awful pause in his step outside your door. The pause that means he is coming again to use what the law insists is his to take.” She hesitated. “I vastly prefer the man who claims he is evil but acts like an archangel instead of the man who appears everything good but in fact is an instrument of humiliation and worse.”

He felt like slamming his fist through the railing. The hammering in his brain almost drowned out her final words. He would kill him all over again. He would dig up Alfred Baird’s body and have it drawn and quartered.

She turned to face him, her hair half fallen about her shoulders from the earlier struggle. Raven strands
whipped across the fragile features of her face. Her complexion had lost most of its color, making her smoky aqua eyes appear huge in her face.

He was using every ounce of control not to take her in his arms. But she hated a man’s hands.

And then one of her delicate palms found its way to his lapel. Porcelain white femininity on pitch-black fabric. She feathered her fingers back and forth lightly as if she were trying to remove dust. But when she should have removed her fingers, her hand strayed over his heart, unmoving.

“I have a favor to ask,” she whispered.

“Yes?”

She looked away and a ray of sunlight poured onto her face as the yacht came about and the shade from the sails disappeared. “I would like to lie down.”

What
? Oh, Christ above, what was she asking? She couldn’t—

“With you.” He had to lean down to catch the words before the wind whisked them away.

She couldn’t possibly mean—

“I know it won’t wash away the horrible memories. But—”

He tilted her chin with the crook of his hand to better see her expression. She closed her eyes and refused to continue.

“But what, Rosamunde? Tell me why you desire something that has only ever been ugly to you.”

“Because it would be my choice.
My choice
. For once, I would be the one…” She was stuck.

“Asking, not obeying?” he finished.

“Yes
.”

This was a disaster in the making. Of gargantuan proportions. A better man would walk away.

A better man would be a fool.

But it might very well not happen. She would cry off when all was said and done. Hell, he knew he would cry off at the first sign of her fright or pain. This was a fine beginning. He swallowed. There were a thousand reasons to refuse her. And yet, when he looked into her eyes he saw such pain—the haunted look of a person who had too long endured rejection and uniform disapproval at every turn—that he couldn’t deny her.

He slowly offered his arm to her.

She placed the length of her forearm above his and allowed him to lead her to his quarters below deck. The last thing he saw before stepping into the darkness was Brownie manning the wheel, his eyes boring into his with a completely blank expression. Damn the old man.

His cabin was dark and a step closer to hell. He watched her swing her gaze around the burnished wood features of the compact quarters, from the nailed-down table and bench to the double-wide bunk.

“Second thoughts?” he murmured behind her. The air had become thick with tension.

“I’m not changing my mind,” she whispered.

“I’ve found that women are often wrong but never in doubt.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I know what I want is wrong, and I’m filled with doubt. But I hate living in fear, hate being bound to memories. Even if this is a
mistake, I would rather remember this moment in this place than everything before.” She trembled slightly but her voice never wavered. “There will be no question of expectations after. I will be going with Ata to London, where she has said she would help me find a position as a lady’s companion somewhere in the North Country.” She turned to face him and dared to raise her eyes to his. “Please…”

She had released the veil from her eyes at last and the anguish he found there was shattering.

“Am I likely to get you with child?”

“No. I never conceived. It was my fault, as Alfred’s first wife and child died during the birthing.”

His mind poured over every objection and rationalized it all away, a little too easily, he thought guiltily. His hand strayed to her hair and drew out a pin tangled in the ebony locks.

Her gaze darted to his fingers and he spied a look of fear before she shuttered her gaze.

He dropped his hands immediately. “This will never work.”

She grasped his palms in hers and replaced them in her hair.

“No,” he said, “you fear a man’s touch. And I have a very good idea what other things might terrify you as well,” he said dryly.

“Luc,” she begged. Tension flowed through the silence broken only by the sound of the waves hitting the masthead.

Hearing his given name on her lips, he knew he would do it. He knew he would find a way to erase
some of her memories of the revolting episodes with her husband. He would do it if it took all day and night, all week, all month. He would give her pleasure, make her find her pleasure. And he knew, quite thoroughly, that he had enough arrogance and experience to do it.

“I think we’ll have to borrow some simple rules of navigation,” he said, gesturing for her to precede him to the bench. “The first is that you are captain of this”—he forced his lips into a smile—“
maiden voyage
. The second is that you must guide me through every channel by telling me what you like and what you don’t like. And you must tell me to stop immediately at any point along the way. And lastly, I shall not use my hands until you guide them to where
you
want them.”

Her eyes widened. “I’m not sure I understand the last part.”

Finally he was on familiar territory. “You’ll know soon enough.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it.

He crouched in front of her seated form, waiting. The muscles in his thighs burned from the strain, and his arousal, which had been upon him since she had asked him to make love to her, was painful in its intensity.

He looked at her, his eyes half shuttered.

Very slowly she leaned forward and hesitated like a bird longing to peck seeds in front of a cat. She closed her eyes and kissed him, swerving to his cheek at the last second.

He felt rather like crying.

He relieved the strain on his thighs by changing his position, kneeling, waiting for her true benediction to proceed with this sinful seduction.

She might think she was in command, but the hard edge of his practiced arts in matters of the flesh meant there was no doubt who was really in charge.

And there was no doubt she was dying for guidance. “Touch me, Rosamunde.”

Her hands tentatively smoothed the crown of his head down to the black silk that bound his hair. She unknotted the ribbon and drew his long hair forward until he felt it cover his shoulders.

A smile flooded her every feature. It transformed her face into that of an innocent schoolgirl. He knew it was going to be all right, now. “And what, pray tell, is so amusing?”

“Your hair.”

His eyebrows rose. “If you say I look like a girl, I may have to kill you.”

Her eyes crinkled and she almost laughed. “You are about as far from looking like a lady as I can imagine. A pirate is more like it. It’s just,” she paused and fingered his locks, “I’ve always longed for beautiful waves like these.”

“Ah.”

“You never cut it?” she asked.

“I only ever allowed one person to cut it.” As he said it, a poignant childhood memory of his mother clouded his mind. It was something he never permitted himself to think about.

“And who was Samson’s Delilah?”

He fought to return amusement to his voice. “I’ve often found that a little mystery in a man keeps a woman’s cursed curiosity whetted,” he said slowly, trying to mesmerize her. “But I will tell you about a game Brownie encouraged while we were at sea. He promised king’s rations for the duration of our missions to anyone who could get me to cut it.”

“And no one ever did,” she stated.

“No one was fool enough to try,” he murmured. “May I take the rest of the pins from your hair?”

She nodded.

He kept his hands by his sides and leaned in to grasp the remaining pins with his teeth and deposited them in her upturned palm. He glanced sideways up to her. “May I?” he whispered.

She nodded again.

He kissed her wrist, a delicate band of skin with a thin blue vein pumping frantically below. He soothed it with his lips then continued to kiss her draped arm up to her neck.

“My beard is chafing you.”

“That’s all right,” she said a little breathlessly.

“What next?” He breathed in the clean soap and lavender scent of her hair and the hollow of her neck.

“I know you said I was to lead, but really, I’m beginning to think I don’t know the proper order of things,” she mumbled. “My husband never—”

“Shhhh,” he interrupted. “Then I shall make suggestions and you shall tell me if they are acceptable to you.”

Rosamunde pressed her face into his neckcloth, her
hands against his shoulders. It seemed she couldn’t watch him as he told her these things, but he would bet his last farthing she was aching to hear them.

He rumbled against her hands, “I propose to kiss you, and taste you. All of you. And then, if you like that, we’ll see.”

“And what am I to do?” she whispered.

“Whatever you like. Assume control, and never ever doubt yourself.” It would do no good to tell her he’d broken that rule a thousand times or more.

Neither of them moved a muscle and once more he found himself exerting iron control over his desire to bring his arms around her and crush her to him.

She turned her head and kissed his cheek again. He smoothly drew his mouth to hers and gently prolonged the kiss, nibbling her lower lip, seeking entrance until she opened to him. His tongue curled against hers, exploring and tasting her while he clamped his hands on the bench on either side of her.