Captivated by a Lady's Charm (Lords of Honor Book 2) (18 page)

By the snapping fury in his eyes, and the uncharacteristic coldness coating his words, he’d not wanted to speak of or share in his past, and yet he had. And that had to mean something. For he’d let her into his world in a way she suspected he allowed very few in. As she crested the slight rise, her sister pulled into focus. Her chest heaved from her efforts. Poppy lay on her side stroking Sir Faithful, with their maid seated upon that bench just where Prudence had left her. She slowed her steps and stared at the peaceful tableau presented by them.

She had wandered off with her sketchpad in her hand, in an orchestrated attempt to see Christian. Yet some great fundamental shift had occurred in which he’d ceased to be that affable rogue on Bond Street, and instead became this very real, very powerfully affected man. Prudence bit the inside of her cheek. How very small her worries were when presented with his talk of war and, more, his desire to shrug as though he’d not taken part in and witnessed hell.

She wheeled around and squinted in the distance. Astride his mount once again, he conversed with Lord Maxwell. What did those two talk about? Did they reminisce on those battles he’d fought in? The weight of sadness pressed on her chest. A smidgeon of her optimistic heart hoped he spoke not of that darkness but rather, of her.

As much as Christian’s words had been intended as a warning, a deterrent to send her fleeing, his raw honesty and lack of conceit over his efforts during the war had only heightened a resolve she’d come to days earlier—she was going to marry that gentleman.

Now, it was merely a matter of following through.

Lesson Fourteen

Sometimes a lady requires assistance in bringing a gentleman up to scratch…

T
hrough their ride in Hyde Park, Maxwell had mentioned nothing about coming upon Christian just as Lady Prudence Tidemore dashed madly away. His longtime friend had said nothing as they’d left the park and ridden through the still-quiet streets. And as they’d entered the hallowed halls of White’s that same afternoon, the other man was unexpectedly silent so that he was left to wonder if the other man had, in actuality, failed to see the young lady.

As a liveried footman settled a bottle and two glasses before them, Maxwell spoke and promptly disabused Christian of any such notion. “Early morning meetings with a lady,
sans
chaperone?” He swiped the bottle from the mahogany surface and poured himself a healthy glass of brandy. “I have heard your expectations for your marchioness and have listened to your thoughts on wedding one of those wide-eyed debutantes—”

“Shut your bloody mouth.” Christian withered him with a look that quashed any mention of Prudence’s name. Should one nearby servant or a lord hear mention of the lady, their names would be inextricably linked which would be disastrous for the both of them.

“I daresay there can be no more perfect pair than you two. The lady comes from a scandalous family with few options.” Again with this bloody old argument. Christian abhorred the flippant manner in which Maxwell spoke of her future and past. He gripped the edge of the table until his knuckles turned white. “You,” his friend waved a hand in Christian’s direction, as though there were another possible “you” in question. “You need a wife. A wealthy one.”

Christian gritted his teeth. “I am not wedding the lady.” He gave a look to Maxwell indicating that he considered the matter at rest. Grateful for his friend’s blessed quiet, he thought of his carefully crafted plans to find his marchioness. Only now the prospect of settling on one of those ruthless, title-grasping ladies which had seemed the best course for him, the easiest course, now scraped at his insides. For along the way between having his toes hopelessly trod on by Lady Prudence in Lord Drake’s ballroom and their exchange in Hyde Park earlier that morning, she’d presented herself as a glimmer of sun in an otherwise dark, desolate world and God help him for craving the warmth upon his person. He swiped a hand over his eyes. Bloody hell, what was the matter with him? He was no lovesick swain mooning over an innocent miss who wore hideously ruffled white skirts, no less.

Alas, Maxwell appeared unwilling to let the matter die, after all. “I do not see your reservations in making L—” Christian gave him another look. “The
lady
your wife. A man would have to be blind to fail to see her adoration—”

“Bah, the lady does not know me,” he scoffed. With quick movements, he grabbed the bottle and poured himself several fingerfuls of brandy, thought better of it and splashed in additional fingerfuls. “She knows as much as the rest of Society.” Which, in short, was nothing.

He braced for his friend’s amusement on his behalf. Some partially jesting comment about those fawning ladies and the pleasure to be had in their arms, but there was, instead, an uncharacteristic somberness to Maxwell that drove Christian’s attention to his glass. With a silent curse, he stared into the amber depths a sickening shade of brownish-red.

His gut tightened as he was transported to the muddied and bloodied battlefield of Waterloo. The ground slicked wet from the sticky blend of death and nature, mixed in an unholy harmony. A dull humming sounded in his ears and he blinked several times in a desperate bid to reclaim control of his senses.

Do not think of it… Do not think of it…

Except, invariably the memories would creep in and when they did, they’d not release their tentacle-like hold upon his sanity.

Get up, you bloody, weak bastard…

“St. Cyr.” His friend’s concerned questioning came as though down a long, empty corridor. Maxwell rested his elbows on the table and placed himself directly in Christian’s line of vision, but when the memories came, they held on and would not relinquish him.

His hand shook and he dimly registered Maxwell plucking the glass from his unsteady fingers and setting it down on the table with a loud thwack. That crack melded with the report of muskets.

I said get up…get up…

From under the table, Maxwell kicked him hard in the shins and that unexpected and very real pain yanked him from the precipice of madness. “Are you all right?” There was a frantic worry to Maxwell’s question that was at odds with the image of indolent rogue he presented to Society.

He managed a jerky nod and reached for his glass. “Fine,” he gritted out. Christian finished the contents in a long, slow swallow. He welcomed the agonizing burn as it blazed a trail down his throat and welcomed that momentary distraction.

“You are certain?” his friend pressed, all the while, eyeing a point beyond Christian’s shoulder.

“I said I am—”

“For the lady’s brother is headed directly this way.”

Christian made no pretense of not understanding just which lady in question’s overprotective brother now headed toward their table. He swallowed a curse, filled with an urge for another stiff brandy. The nausea still roiling in his belly from the stark reminder of his past left him muddled. He reclined in his chair and gauged the Earl of Sinclair’s pursuit by the look Maxwell trained over Christian’s shoulder.

“St. Cyr, a pleasure to see you,” the earl said as he came to a stop beside Christian’s table. With fury snapping in his eyes, Lord Sinclair deliberately ignored the other man.

Maxwell hooked his fingers onto the lapels of his jacket and leaned back on the legs of his chair. “Sinclair,” he drawled, giving the other man an insolent half-grin. “A pleasure to see you, as well.”

Prudence’s brother scowled and momentarily shifted his attention over to St. Cyr’s friend. “Maxwell,” he said curtly. Then dismissing him once more, he looked to Christian. “If you will excuse me, Maxwell, there is a matter of import I would speak with St. Cyr on.” By the austere command in the earl’s tone, he was not a man accustomed to having his wishes or orders gainsaid.

And for one brief moment, Christian entertained the idea of telling the man to go to the devil. He had no business with him. Prudence’s blushing visage flashed to his mind. Nay, there was her. The reason the earl was, no doubt, standing over him with the look of a duel promised in his eyes. He gave a slight nod. “If you’ll excuse us a moment?”

His friend hesitated and then rocked forward, properly righting his chair. He took another swallow of his brandy and then set it down. Wordlessly, Maxwell climbed to his feet and took his leave.

The earl did not wait for social niceties. He claimed the seat vacated by the other man and edged the chair closer to the table. A servant rushed over with a clean, crystal snifter. With a careless half-grin that conveyed nothing more than a casual meeting between two nobles, the earl accepted the glass with a murmur of thanks and waved the man off.

Lord Sinclair claimed the bottle as though he himself were the owner of the fine French brew and poured himself a healthy glass of brandy. Glass cradled negligently between his fingers, he sat back in his seat and hooked his ankle across his opposite knee. “St. Cyr,” he drawled, as if the previous exchange with Maxwell had never occurred. He continued to smile that cold, humorless grin. Only as one who’d donned a practiced grin, Christian easily recognized it on another.

He swirled the contents of his glass. “Sinclair, why don’t we avoid the need for false pleasantries and have you speak on whatever it is finds you at my table?”

The other man sat forward in his seat with alacrity better suited a tiger about to pounce. “Very well.” He settled his elbows upon the smooth surface of the mahogany table, that damned, infuriating half-grin plastered to his bloody face. “I know of you, St. Cyr.”

He stiffened. A dull flush heated his neck. Precisely what did the other man know? The secrets Christian carried were known by only a handful; and much of those secrets had been lost in the confused haze of battle. Inevitably, they’d come to light. The idea that it would be at Prudence’s brother’s hands dug at his insides. Then, in a bid to regain control of the exchange, he took another casual sip. “Oh?”

The other man snapped his eyebrows together in a single, furious line, but then quickly collected himself, adopting the casual, carefree veneer that was likely as much a façade as Christian’s bored, indolent rogue. He leaned even further across the table. “Very well, I will come to what has brought me here.” The earl paused and stole a quick glance about.

Christian braced, knowing there was no business he could possibly have with the Earl of Sinclair beyond the young lady whose lips he’d taken under his on his balustrade two nights prior.

“You are dancing with my sister.”

At that hushed, furious charge, he gave a lazy grin. “No, I am drinking.” And because he knew it would grate on the earl’s last nerve, he lifted his glass in salute and took a sip.

“Shove off, St. Cyr. You know what I am speaking of.” A muscle ticked at the corner of the earl’s mouth. “Lady Prudence Tidemore.”

Christian rolled the tumbler back and forth between his hands. He knew very well the lady in question. She’d occupied a corner of his mind since the moment he’d taken the innocent miss in his arms for a waltz at Lady Drake’s affair. “I know the lady.” And he wanted to know more of her in ways that would have landed him on the opposite end of the dueling field if he so much as uttered the truth to her brother.

It proved the wrong thing to say for a man who had the look of blood in his eyes—nay, the look of Christian’s blood. At the highhanded insolence of the other nobleman, he tightened his hold upon his glass. He braced for the earl to unleash his unchecked fury upon him. The other man, however, demonstrated a remarkable control. Lord Sinclair stretched his hands out before him and cracked his knuckles in what would only be perceived as a casual, relaxed manner by outside observers. Only opposite him as he was, Christian knew he was one wrong word away from the other man attempting to drag him across the table and bloody his face. “Let me be direct, St. Cyr.”

“Please.” He’d had enough of the man’s games.

“You are a rogue, and if the gossip is to be believed, a fortune hunter.”

At that stingingly accurate pronouncement, Christian went silent. Shame tightened in his belly at having his circumstances so malevolently dragged out before him and by this man, no less. The bloody bastard. He rolled his shoulders. “And my circumstances matter to you for what reason?” he said, winging an eyebrow upward.

“You do not deny it,” the earl shot back.

Christian gritted his teeth. “I will not explain myself to you.”

“Oh, you will though,” the Earl of Sinclair said on a low, menacing whisper. The chair creaked under the shifting of the other man’s frame. “You see, despite your protestations, your circumstances matter very much. If the gossip is to be believed.” He paused, at the very least giving Christian an opportunity to deny it. “Then my sister would be unsuspecting prey for one,” Sinclair ran a derisive gaze up and down his person, “such as you.” And by the details shared by Prudence, the earl would not have another of his sisters become the unsuspecting victim of a nefarious gentleman.

Coward he might be. Fortune hunter, yes. But he would never trap a lady into marriage. He’d not tell that to the earl, nor did he suspect it would matter much to the other man if he did. Christian downed the remaining contents of his glass and welcomed the fiery trail it blazed down his throat. His lips pulled in an involuntary grimace and he set the glass down with a hard thunk. The urge to tell the other man he could take his bloody conclusions and go to devil with them gripped him. Yet, something held him back.

Prudence.

For as much as he despised her brother’s arrogance in seeking him out and all but publically tossing around his circumstances, he commiserated as a fellow older brother. “For what you think you know of me and my circumstances, I have no interest in,” liar, “your sister.”

“You danced with her,” the earl quickly rejoined. “Twice.”

One and a half waltzes. And a stolen kiss on the balcony of his gardens. Christian might resent the other man’s reservations, yet had a gentleman of Christian’s reputation and history dared pursue Lucinda, he’d have shredded him with his bare hands before he let him near his younger sister. It was because of that shared bond he’d never dare admit to this man, a devoted brother, that he said nothing else on it.

The Earl of Sinclair broke the silent impasse. “You do not have intentions, honorable or otherwise toward my sister?”

He hesitated.

At that imperceptible pause that hinted at more for the lovely, spirited Lady Prudence, Sinclair narrowed his eyes.

“You may be rest assured, I’d not sully your sister with my attentions.” They were perhaps the truest words he’d spoken to the other man since the earl had stormed in making demands of him.

The Earl of Sinclair searched his face. Then, he gave a slow, pleased nod. He took another long sip of his brandy and then set his glass down. “As long as we are clear, St. Cyr.” He shoved back his chair.

Christian’s patience snapped. “I will have you know your warnings are not what are keeping me away from the lady.” His sense of his self-worth and her goodness are what did.