Lady of Pleasure (15 page)

The woman expected
him
to push Hawksford into
her
arms?

Hell, there was just some things a man didn’t do.

No matter how much money was being tossed at him.

Ronan braced his hands against the desk, trying to remain calm knowing that even little old Lady Waverly
knew
to send him money in order to get what she wanted. It made him feel like the whore he was.

Smacking the ledger shut, he shouted out to wherever his uncle was in the house, “
I’ll mind you not to open my goddamn letters! You don’t live here. Remember?!
”

“I’m not deaf, boy!” his uncle boomed back from behind him. “And forgive me but I got rather used to opening your correspondences after you’ve been gone for thirteen months. I only realized it
after
I opened it. It won’t happen again.”

Ronan swung toward his uncle who stood in the doorway. “Thank you.” He paused, finding the man holding a small box with a white satin bow fussily tied around it.

Ronan shifted toward him. “What the devil is that?”

“A box with a white satin bow on it.”

Ronan rolled his eyes. “I can see that. What is it? Is it for you?”

“I don’t live here, remember? No. It’s not for me. It’s for you. It arrived when I was downstairs reading the newspaper.”

God save him if some woman was trying to wedge her way into his life. Ronan waved him off, knowing full well he didn’t want it. “Who is from?”

His uncle fingered the small, ivory card tucked beneath the bow. He lowered his gaze to it and read, “
To Lord Caldwell. Compliments of Lady Caroline
.”

His breath caught. She didn’t. “She sent something?”

His uncle held his gaze. “I don’t know. Did she?” He turned on his booted heel and veered out of sight in the direction of the stairs.

Ronan dashed after him, skidding out into the corridor. “Is it from her or not?”

His uncle kept on walking, only with a bit more swagger. “Why? Are you going to wrestle me for it?”

Which meant it was from Caroline. Jogging in from behind the man, Ronan said, “Don’t be annoying. Hand it over.”

His uncle came to an abrupt halt and turned toward him, a rowdy grin ruffling his lips. “By God.”

“What?”

“I thought I’d never see it. You’re in love with her. Aren’t you?”

Ronan’s mouth went dry at the thought. He didn’t want to think about what that could mean. “No. I don’t…no. I’m…no.”

Those brown eyes brightened. “And that is the very best sort of love to stumble into. One you didn’t see coming. Go on. Do something. You know how smitten the girl is. It’s disgusting.”

Ronan shifted his jaw. “She is young and doesn’t know what she wants.”

“Women always know what they want. No matter how old or young. Now matter how misguided or true it be. They
know
. Believe me, they know.” His uncle paused. “She is incredibly pretty.”

Too pretty. In all but three years, she had become a goddess. “I won’t argue with you on that.”

“Nice, full mouth. Imagine what she could do with it.”

Ronan glared and punched his uncle’s shoulder hard, hoping that it damn well hurt. “What the devil is wrong with you?! Don’t talk about her like that. It’s disturbing.”

His uncle laughed, rubbed his arm, and ambled back. “Something tells me you’re taking her to Paris this summer to meet Beatrice.”

“
Enough
.” Grabbing the box out of his uncle’s hands, Ronan stared down at the white satin bow, his pulse drumming. In some way, he was afraid to open it. It would be like opening the door to what she wanted: a relationship. Something he had never allowed for. Something he refused to allow for.

He swallowed, brought the box up to her ear and gently shook it, wondering what was inside. Something shifted within.

His uncle leaned in closer. “What is it?”

“As you can see, I haven’t opened it yet.”

“Well then, get on it. I have a newspaper to get back to, you know.”

Ronan fingered the satin bow for a moment, then tugged at its end, causing the smooth material to unravel and float soundlessly to the floor. He removed the lid and found a deck of cards with a small red satin ribbon daintily tied around it. His breath hitched when he feathered his thumb over the worn edges of those cards. Buried on the side of the box was a missive.

His uncle leaned in. “Why would she send cards?”

Ronan’s chest tightened. “She and I used this same deck of cards to play piquet every Thursday for years.”

“How romantic.”

It was. The women he had always involved himself with had only ever sent him money. Not memories.

“Read the inscription there on the inside,” Hughes prodded.

Peering into the box, Ronan dug out the small card from beneath the deck and held it up. Tilting the card’s inscription which had been elegantly scribed in her hand across the smooth surface, he read, “Remember what we share. Yours always, C.”

His uncle let out a low whistle. “There goes her reputation.”

Ronan’s fingers crushed the edges of the cardstock, remembering the way she had felt in his arms that night in the alcove. It didn’t feel dirty. It felt…pure. Real. And the way she had looked up at him as if her very soul were about to break almost broke his own. No one had ever looked at him like that. But then again, she didn’t know what he really was: a whore. Jesus.

His uncle paused. “So what happens next?”

Ronan shoved the card back into the box. “Nothing happens. You know I’m not the marrying sort. And God forbid she finds out about how make my money. I’m not doing that to her or myself. I’m not.” He cleared his throat, not wanting to think about Caroline anymore. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He shouldn’t. “I’m going to your champagne party. Send an invitation to Theodosia, will you? She and I have an agreement.”

His uncle eyed him. “You are damn difficult to understand. One moment there is a fire in your eye for the girl and the next moment you are stone cold. I know you don’t bloody get it from me.” He muttered something, then grudgingly shook his head and left.

Ronan swallowed. There were times he wished he had it in him to tell his uncle why he was willing to take money from women but not much else. But the last thing he wanted was to be treated differently and say his shame aloud.

Ronan squeezed his eyes shut, feeling a headache coming on.

Days later, evening

When the Hawksford house had at long last grown quiet, Caroline was about to peel back the coverlet of her bed and crawl into its comforting warmth, when she paused. She blinked. For there, sitting primly atop her embroidered pillow and coverlet was a sealed parchment. A letter? It was a touch larger in size than what she was used to seeing in a letter.

It also bore no inscription and was as blank as unpainted plaster.

The candle she had set in its holder on the bedside table wavered, shifting the soft, circular golden light from the flame across its surface.

She glanced about the shadow-ridden bedchamber and pressed the open flaps of her pale pink robe against her white cotton nightgown beneath, feeling as though someone were watching her. Her eyes moved past the drawn curtained windows, the small dresser, the mirror and the porcelain washing basin, and finally rested on the closed door.

The humming silence made her fully aware that she was in fact alone and that everyone in the house, including her mother, her brother, her sisters, and all of the servants had long retired.

She squinted. Her lady’s maid had mentioned a letter earlier. One that had arrived with the request that it be delivered into no one’s hands but hers. This had to be it.

Reaching out, she picked up the sealed parchment. Recognizing Caldwell’s seal, she frantically broke the wax holding it shut and unfolded it. An invitation with a lone black ribbon knotted around it, slipped out from beneath a short missive.

She froze. Only champagne parties had black ribbons knotted around the invitation. And given the sort of family she grew up in, she knew full well what they were. Her brother
and
her father had been guilty of attending a few. They were incredibly exclusive, reserved for only a select few chosen by faceless men, and it involved far, far more than champagne. It involved secret, promiscuous revelry between men and women that caused respectable society to curse the very existence of champagne itself.

She swallowed and turned the missive toward the light of the candle, wanting to know why Caldwell would have invited her.

Recognizing his writing all too well, she read:

Her eyes widened. She glanced up, her heart pounding in a way she had never known. It was happening. It was finally happening. Her. Him. Them. He was kneeling.

She paused. But why like this? Why did he want her to meet him in secret?

Unless he knew Alex wouldn’t be accepting of them. Unless he had tried to talk to Alex and Alex had outright refused him. Alex had been unusually gruff and close-mouthed toward her as of late. Which he never was. What if—

She fingered the missive, her hands trembling at the reality of what she was holding. Caldwell wanted her. He wanted her enough to go against her own brother’s wishes and make her his own to ensure it. She slowly rounded her bed toward the nightstand. Ronan. He had even signed the missive Ronan. He’d never signed anything with birth name before. Which meant… “I will be there with open arms. I promise.” She kissed his name not once, not twice, but thrice.

Memorizing the date and address on the invitation, which she knew she had to burn lest her brother see it, she took up the candlestick holder by its looped ear, and walked over to the hearth on the opposite side of her room. Lingering before the hearth, she sent up a soft prayer that Caldwell, or rather,
Ronan
, would at long last be hers. As she had always dreamed.

She stuck the edge of the invitation into the flame of the candle. The flame quickly spread, curled, and blackened the parchment, sending wisps of white smoke up into the air.

Caroline tossed it into the hearth and watched it burn until all that was left were a few charred, glowing brittle pieces. Setting aside the candle onto the mantle, she held up his missive, dreamily admiring the words ‘
I acquiesce to being yours’
and whirled her way back toward the bed. Flopping backward onto the bed, she bit back a squeal and excitedly thudded her bare feet against the mattress in disbelief.

Pausing from her thudding, she slowly pressed the missive bearing his birth name against her chest. No one and nothing was going to keep them apart. Not even her brother. She whispered aloud, “I love you, Ronan. I love you so much.” His birth name sounded so perfect and heavenly upon her lips. She was never calling him Caldwell again. It would always be Ronan. Her beloved Ronan.

She bit back a fantasy-laced smile knowing he was hers.

At long last,
Ronan
was hers.

Thursday evening, 10:28 p.m.

When guilt about keeping her missive from Ronan a secret had finally gnawed at Caroline to the point of anguish, she had asked her mother a day before her set rendez-vous with Ronan if she could attend said champagne party. Her mother’s eyes widened and grabbing her face hard, said, “Your brother would kill you
and
me if I agreed to such a thing. What is wrong with you? No.”