Leslie Lafoy (2 page)

He didn’t have the slightest doubt of her ability to turn male heads wherever she went. And the hopes and fantasies she stirred when she did . . . He reminded himself that his task was not to make a mistress of her. No, he was mandated to make a regal, untouchable lady out of her and then hand her off to the highest, most deluded bidder. What a waste of a naturally seductive female. But since Geoffrey had decreed and the law was prepared to enforce it . . . When she came back into the showroom, he said, “Let me begin again.” At her glance, he charged forward into the matter from the top. “I am here to discharge the duties attached to the inheritance of your late father’s estate.”

“Ah, I see,” she said, as she went about straightening the chairs and footstools.

“You see what?”

“Why you’ve come to a place so obviously beneath a person of your importance,” she answered. “You were compelled to do so by the lure of a fortune.”

His importance? Ha!
“I am not unfamiliar with environs such as this.”

“Your upper lip apparently hasn’t become accustomed to them.”

He blinked and barely resisted the urge to lift his hand to his mouth. “Pardon?” he asked, more irritated by her dismissive manner than he was interested or mystified.

“Your upper lip,” she repeated, picking up a basket and checking the contents. “When you climbed from your carriage, it tried to crawl up your nose.”

Drayton tried to suppress the shudder and largely failed. If Geoffrey hadn’t been dead, he’d have killed him. “If,” he said crisply, determined to take the situation firmly in hand, “I might have your complete attention.”

She sighed heavily, closed the lid of the damn basket, and looked at him. “Do go on,” she instructed tightly. “And then do go on your way.”

Her eyes darkened considerably when she was angry. At the moment, they were terribly close to the color of a well-blued gun barrel. And they were fixed on him with about the same sort of deadly intensity. He took a slow breath and met her challenge full on, saying, “As your father saw death approaching, he resolved to rectify what he considered the wrongs he’d done to others over the course of his long life. In addition to making several generous bequests to charities, he set aside funds for the proper maintenance and support of his children.”

Her smile was barely civil. “I’m sure they’re appropriately grateful. What does all this have to do with me?”

“You are his daughter.”

“His illegitimate daughter,” she countered icily.

“His direct legitimate descendants did not survive to assume the title.”

“Or, as they say, they failed to survive
him
.”

Well, yes, that was probably a fair statement. From all that he’d ever heard, Geoffrey’s expectations of others had been considerably higher than any of those he had ever imposed on himself. “We were distantly related,” Drayton offered, choosing his words carefully, “and I met him personally only once in my life. I can’t say that I came away with the impression of his being a particularly ogreish or deliberately hard-hearted man.”

“You’re one meeting ahead of me in the tally,” she said, her voice sounding oddly strained. “What impressions I’ve formed of him over the years are from my mother’s life in his wake. Forgive me if I’m not giddy with the thought of dancing off to the south of France to live a life
of carefree abandon with the buckets of money he left behind for me. I know enough of my sire and his tendencies to keep a very firm grasp on reality. And that reality is that, like my mother, I must make my own way.”

“I believe I mentioned that he had something of a change of heart at the end of his life.”

“Yes, you did,” she allowed, heading for the curtain again, this time with the basket in hand. “You may leave the bag of coins on the counter and consider your task fulfilled.”

The woman was maddening beyond belief! This shouldn’t have been anywhere near as difficult as she was making it. He followed her through the curtain saying, “Madam, I would appreciate it if you would stop walking away from me while I am talking to you.”

Standing at a worktable littered with scraps of fabric and tubes of vellum, she looked over her shoulder at him and arched a brow.

“If tossing a bag of coins at you were sufficient,” he declared, “I would have handed the matter off to a solicitor and not made the effort to appear here personally. As a condition of inheritance, your father has charged me with the personal responsibility of seeing you formally recognized as his offspring and situated in an advantageous marriage.”

She tilted her head and blinked at him in a manner that was unexpectedly, stunningly coquettish. “What?”

“If tossing a bag—”

“I heard what you said,” she interrupted, straightening her head and obliterating the brief moment of femininity. “Quite clearly. My amazement is over the part relating to recognition and the arrangement of a marriage. Why would he suddenly care about such things?”

“I can only deduce that he was motivated by a keen sense of regret.”

She arched her brow again and there was a decidedly sarcastic edge to her voice when she said, “Having to give an accounting to Saint Peter undoubtedly figured into it as well.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed with a slight shrug. “I can’t speak to the spiritual beliefs he might have held. Whatever his deeper motives were, the fact is that he intended for you to use his name to secure an elevated station in life and the financial certainty which attends it.”

She rolled her eyes. “And how many men of substance are there who would be interested in marrying the twenty-three-year-old bastard daughter of a dead-as-a-doornail peer?”

“You will be amazed.”

“The bastard daughter who has spent the last five years of her life in . . . ” She tilted her head slightly back and pressed the back of her wrist to her brow. “Oh, gasp,” she whimpered in patently feigned distress. “Trade.”

“You would be amazed by what men are willing to overlook in the light of a substantial dowry.”
And be willing to give for a taste of you.

“I would rather be left alone, thank you.”

“Unfortunately, neither of us has a choice in the matter.”

She considered him, an odd, almost taunting smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Do you intend to take me from my shop by force, hold me in chains, and auction me to the highest bidder?”

Well, no, but he couldn’t afford to admit it. “If need be.”

She laughed—the sound feathering over his senses—and walked past him saying, “And to think that you appear
to be such a civilized man. You must be in desperate need of money.”

And once again he found himself standing on the wrong side of the curtain, watching it fall back into place and facing a choice between trotting after her like some damn cocker spaniel or standing his ground with no one to witness or appreciate the show. He scrubbed his hand over his chin, pivoted on his heel, and stepped to the other side of the curtain.

“My circumstances are not relevant,” he lied as he crossed the showroom. With the counter between them, he met her gaze squarely and said, “I am required to see you properly wed and settled and I will employ whatever means are necessary to achieve that end.”

“Really?”

That one single word, the disdainful, mocking tone of it . . . He reached into his coat pocket, took out his ace, and laid it on the counter in front of her.

“And this is?” she asked even as she picked it up.

“Notice from your landlord concerning the sale of this building,” he explained.

“Do let me guess,” she countered, putting it down without having looked at it. The color of her eyes was like that of a pure blue flame. “He’s sold it to you. And you are fully prepared to increase my rent to an utterly astronomical level if I refuse to play my part in assuaging my dead father’s conscience and securing your claim to his estate.”

“That would be it in the proverbial nutshell,” he admitted, nodding. “The rent is now two hundred pounds a month. Payable semi-annually, in advance. Which means the sum of twelve hundred pounds is due at the present moment.” He put out his hand, palm up, and added, “In
the absence of my business manager, I will, just this once, set aside convention and accept your payment.”

Caroline drew a slow, deep breath and considered her possible courses. None of them were pleasant. If she had a bit of chain and a padlock, she could fasten herself to the coal stove in the workroom to keep him from hauling her out. But she didn’t and now that he’d made it a contest of money . . . It wasn’t a fair fight at all and she knew good and well that she was going to lose in the end. But surrendering without so much as a whimper . . . She lifted her chin. “Please consider this notification of my intent to immediately relocate my business.”

“There is the matter of the unpaid balance on this month’s rent,” he countered instantly, apparently having anticipated her plan. “I’m afraid that I will have to seize your inventory in lieu of that payment.”

Of course. A man every bit as ruthless as he was handsome. “Are you a bastard by birth as well as by temperament?”

Anger flashed in the depth of his dark eyes. It didn’t, however, show in his voice when he said coolly, smoothly, “Casting aspersions will not alter my course. Or yours. You are the daughter of a duke.”

“I have always been the daughter of a duke. Not that it’s mattered one whit until today.”

“Ah,” he drawled, as the tiniest of smiles lifted one corner of his mouth. “But today has arrived and your destiny has been forever altered. Please get your wrap and whatever personal items of sentimental value you might wish to bring into your new life.”

I have snapped my fingers. Obey.
Caroline counted to ten and brought her anger under control. “I can’t walk out
the door right this instant, lock it behind me, and hand you the key.”

“Why ever not?”

“This is a business,” she explained tightly. “I have clients to whom I owe goods. They have made deposits and I have made promises. Aside from their disappointment, my professional reputation will be ruined if I simply up and leave.”

“Your reputation as a modiste is now . . . pardon the pun . . . immaterial.”

“And my assistant?” she posed. “What of her? She’s to return from her shopping within the next hour or so. What’s she to do when she finds the shop closed and locked?”

“Leave her a note telling her that she’s free to find herself another situation.”

“And my personal reputation?” she demanded, her voice higher pitched than she liked. She paused to swallow and drag in a settling breath. “What of it? Is there a proper chaperone waiting in your carriage?”

He shrugged. Barely. “Appearances do not matter overly much until such time as society becomes aware of you. Now please gather your belongings. We have much to do yet today and this has already taken far more time than I intended.”

Far be it from her to inconvenience him. She folded her arms across her midriff. “And what will you do if I refuse?”

“Your trinkets will be left behind when I sling you over my shoulder and haul you out.”

Trinkets.
The pompous ass. “I’d kick and scream,” she threatened, not caring that she sounded like a peevish child. “The public spectacle would be horribly embarrassing for you.”

“Probably so,” he admitted with a full-fledged, heart-tripping smile. “Which would mean, of course, that I could never appear in this part of town again. A tragedy I will simply have to bear as best I can.”

Oh, to win against him . . . There had to be a way. Simply had to be. Perhaps she could make a pretense of gathering up her things and—

“Yes, you could easily slip out the rear door while you are collecting your belongings. But please be aware that my footman is waiting there for you.”

How he’d known what she was thinking was a mystery she’d ponder later. At the moment, she was too frustrated and resentful to see anything except the trap in which she’d been caught. “You appear to have considered all of my likely reactions.”

“I believe in being thorough,” he admitted with a nod. “But I must admit to being surprised by your resistance. Why do you feel the need to be such an obstinate creature? I’m offering all the stuff of grand, girlish dreams. Wealth, privilege, marriage. What could this . . .” He glanced around her shop and made a weak gesture to encompass it. “What could this
place
offer you that would be of equal worth?”

Place?
Place?
She gripped the edge of the counter in front of her in a desperate effort to contain her anger. No, her shop wasn’t a high-priced, self-important salon that decided who they’d deign to serve and who wasn’t good enough to darken their door. But neither was it a dark and dingy and sweaty back room where clothes were assembled by women who were slaves in all but legal status. How dare he dismiss her shop as though the efforts to build it hadn’t amounted to anything. How dare he walk into her life and expect her to happily—no gleefully,
instantly!—abandon everything she and her mother had worked so hard to achieve.

“I’m not a girl,” she replied tautly, inwardly seething. “I’m a woman, full-grown. I don’t pine to be a wife, to either a rich man or a poor one. As for dreams of castles and houses with names and attending fancy balls in elegant, obscenely expensive gowns . . . My father couldn’t be bothered with my dreams while he lived, couldn’t be bothered with
me
. My dreams died long before he did. As for what this
place
offers me . . . Independence and protection from the whims of selfish men like my father. Of men like you.”

He cocked a brow and tilted his head, studying her for a second as though she were some exotic Egyptian bug in a display case at the museum. “Have you ever heard the expression, cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face?” He didn’t give her a chance to reply. “Your father is dead. Refusing to accept his largesse accomplishes nothing that will make the least bit of difference to him or to anyone else. It will simply ensure that you spend the rest of your life as you have spent the first part of it, existing on the margins of respectability and clinging by your fingertips to economic survival.”