My Lady, My Lord (24 page)

Oh, good heavens. At least he’d been a widower for some years already. Corinna hoped the mask hid her distaste.

“I’m departing just now,” she replied. “But thank you for the flattery.”

“Flattery it is not. Truth. God’s truth.” He scanned her with hooded eyes. “A woman with a beautiful body is made for love.”

Corinna’s stomach tightened. That night with Ian, he had said something like that to her.

“Yet what of thought, my lord?” she heard herself ask. “What of a woman’s mind, bonded companion to her body?” Why did she bother? Lord Pelley was thoroughly disguised. But unease caught at her. The gown that enticed Ian to kiss her tonight was a costume designed to distract from who she truly was.

Lord Pelley scoffed. “There is nothing to a woman’s mind. Even when it seems so, it’s only window dressing. Women should not think. They should tend to their men.” His lips twisted into a thin smirk. “Tend to me tonight, Venus. I will make it worth your while.”

Corinna backed away, caught sight of Ian entering the foyer, and moved toward him. He glanced at Lord Pelley, then took her arm and drew her into a curtained alcove.

“Did you reveal yourself to him?”

She shook off his hold. “No. I wouldn’t do that here. Do you think I’m an absolute fool?”

“I think it’s astounding that you’re here at all. What did he say to you? When I came through that door, you looked as though you’d been struck.”

“He propositioned me.”

Ian’s mouth ticked up at one side. “A hazard of such scandalous events, I’m afraid.” He narrowed the distance between them and stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “That distressed you so greatly? I thought you were made of hardier stuff.”

She pulled away from his touch, agitation suffocating her.

“He said there is nothing to a woman’s mind, that they should not endeavor to think.”

“His opinion is common enough, especially among his set. You of all women should know that.”

“Why did he refuse to sell his company to me, Ian? That night of the card game you didn’t tell me everything. I know it. Tell me now.”

For several moments he said nothing, the sounds of revelry muffled through the heavy draperies, the air within the small space close.

“He refused your offer because you are a woman.”

“Upon that basis alone?”

“That alone.”

“But, that makes no business sense whatsoever. You said he approved of my program and my price, and he has no other offers.”

“For a woman of great intellect, Corinna, you are astoundingly naïve. But perhaps the two go hand in hand.”

“But I am not a woman in the conventional sense,” she insisted.

“No, you are not.”

Her heart constricted. Ian agreed with Lord Pelley’s assessment of a woman’s purpose. Of course he did. His string of mistresses and his lifelong attitude toward her testified to that. If she needed further proof that they were unsuited to each other, here she had it as clear as bells ringing.

“Not in any way that matters to him,” he added. “But superficially you are—feminine, beautiful, desirable.”

“Those mean nothing,” she uttered, swamped in the futility of all her wishes.

“Don’t be foolish. Ninety-nine of one hundred men cannot see beyond those attributes. They will do anything to avoid perceiving a woman of sense and intelligence for who she truly is. They prefer it that way.”

“Like you did that night?”

His eyes grew wary. “That night?”

“The night we made love.” She nearly choked on the words. “You saw that red gown and the body you desired but could not have, and ignored all the rest of me that you so dislike so you could—”

He grabbed her and pulled her to him. “I have had your body,” he said, close to her mouth. “I know your mind. And I still desire you.”

She pushed against his chest, but without strength. She didn’t really want him to release her. Ever.

“No, Ian,” she made herself say, a mere whisper. “That kiss earlier was a mistake. You don’t know what you’re thinking.”

“I cannot think at all when you’re in my arms.”

He took her lips. She resisted for only a moment, then met him with all the need and hopelessness inside her. Her arms twined around him as he gripped the base of her skull and forced her mouth open. He demanded, stripping her of hesitation, making love to her with his tongue and lips so that she wanted to crawl inside him, to be one with him.

He clamped her to him, his arms powerful, holding her so tight she struggled to breathe. She gulped in air and he kissed her throat and neck, her shoulders and the edge of her bodice. His mouth sought her breast through the tissue thin fabric, and he sucked her hard. She moaned, pushing into him, aching. If he asked, she would give herself to him here, again, regardless of the consequences.

He bit lightly, tightening her nipple to unbearable pleasure. She moaned, a desperate whimper, thick and hot where her desire coiled. He tugged the sheer fabric aside and pleasure rumbled in his chest as his tongue stroked her naked flesh. He made her damp, then wet, then liquid, straining into his kiss, need mounting with his soft, then hard, thrusts. He blew a breath across the peak, then took it with his whole mouth, and inside she clenched with unbearable sweetness.

He lifted his head and ran his tongue along the edge of her ear, then nipping with his teeth, not gently but like he wanted to consume her. His big hands cupped her behind, holding her tight to his erection, and she parted her thighs, inviting him to touch her, needing his hands on her, wanting his mouth on her breast again but wanting him inside her too.

“Ian,” she sighed. His hand moved between her legs, pressing the fabric inward, his fingers strafing her throbbing flesh. Pleasure shivered through her, but a sob rose in her throat of mingled need and agony. She had become one of his doxies, wanting him desperately and willing to do anything to have him, even make love to him in a public place. She had become everything she despised.

He went very still, then his hands grasped her arms. Through her haze of confusion, voices came to her, loud and harsh on the opposite side of the curtain.

“—won’t do it, Thomas. Not good
ton
. D’shonest too.” Gregory’s unmistakable voice stumbled over the words. He sounded drunk, and badly so.

Another voice responded, but Corinna couldn’t make out the speech.

“M’ brother’s not a cheat,” Gregory insisted. “Told you so already. Y’r father can go hang. I’ll tell him myself now. Where’s the old bounder? M’ brother never cheated.”

Ian stepped away from Corinna, swiftly scanned her face and body, then went from the alcove into the foyer. She dragged in breaths, her shaking hands running over her gown, the bodice damp from his mouth. Her throat thickened with tears.

He returned with her cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders. She fumbled with the clasp and he covered her fingers, his hands strong and perfectly steady as he fastened it. He drew the hood over her veil.

“Your carriage is out front,” he said. “I must deal with Gregory now.”

She opened her mouth, but none of the words that rushed to her tongue were rational, not one she would have uttered a month earlier.

“Go home, Corinna.” He touched her chin, then disappeared through the curtain.

Corinna went to her carriage and allowed the groom to hand her in. Only then did she realize she should have hired a hackney for the night. Anyone who cared to notice could recognize her family’s vehicle and horses. She sat immobile during the ride home, nausea lapping at her insides.

She had tried to fool herself. A part of her wanted to be recognized. She didn’t want to care what others thought of her. If it meant she would no longer feel this heartache, a part of her wanted to be Ian Chance again.

T
HE MORNING AFTER
the masquerade ball Corinna arose early, penned a note to Lord Fitzhugh, and sent it off with a footman. She waited in the parlor until he arrived. He would not make her wait. He was predictable. As predictable as Ian.

He entered the parlor with a smile on his face, a fine looking man still under forty, elegantly dressed, with an air of authority about him and a thinking person’s crease of the brow. The ideal husband for her. He took her hand and bowed over it.

“Good morning, my lady. I was delighted to receive your message.”

“Thank you for coming so quickly, Giles.”

“Cora,” he squeezed her fingers, “I’ve spent the past four days doing little else but await that message. I would have kept my horses saddled and bridled the whole while, but my groom would not allow it.” He laughed, a self-deprecating rumble of enjoyment that made him all the more attractive.

“I beg your pardon for forcing you to wait for my response, but I think we will both come to be grateful for these few days I have spent considering it.” She withdrew her hand from his. “Giles, I am sensible of the honor you do me in asking me to marry you, but I cannot accept.” Corinna willed herself to graciously accept whatever he now said. But she knew he would not say anything to rouse strong emotion in her. He never had.

“I am disappointed, of course.” He looked at the ground as though gathering his thoughts, then to her face again. “I believe us well suited to each other, and my feelings for you are strong. They have been for years.”

“I’m sorry, Giles. I do admire you greatly.”

“Are you, then, determined to remain unwed, to pursue your salon and other endeavors according to your will alone, rather than accept the guidance of a husband?”

“I hope to continue my salon as long as I may. It is my life’s work, and I am satisfied and proud of it.”

“But marriage, Cora? Do you eschew it as policy or is it only I? Could I have been so mistaken in believing that our characters flatter each other?”

“I am not categorically opposed to marriage, and you were not mistaken about us. You are an inestimable gentleman, Giles, and I have long cherished our friendship.”

His face grew grave. “Then there is another man.”

Corinna masked her surprise.

“There must be,” he continued, “for a woman of your birth and intelligence to deny herself the situation I offer—an elevated title, comfortable income, intellectual companionship, and sincere affection.” He spoke as though it cost him effort. “Corinna, I care deeply for you, but perhaps you are wise to say we will both be happy for this outcome. I am not happy now, and will not be for quite some time, I suspect. If another reason caused you hesitation, I would press my suit. But to be married to a woman in love with another man is not my idea of lifelong felicity.”

“Giles, you are generous.”

“Who is he, Cora? Will you allow me that at least?”

She could not respond.

He nodded. “Then I must wish you the best of it, that he returns your affections and you find happiness.” He walked toward the door, his bearing erect. He paused and turned to her. “Nine years ago, when I first offered for you, was it the same? Did your heart already belong to this man?”

Corinna twisted her fingers in her skirts. “I don’t know. Yes, perhaps.”

He nodded, and departed. She barely had time to blink before another gentleman crossed the parlor’s threshold. Gregory entered, glancing back.

“Was that Fitzhugh?” His gaze shifted around the empty parlor. “Were you here alone with him?”

“Yes, and now I am here alone with you.”

“But I’m family, or nearly.”

She lowered herself into a chair, her legs unsteady. Had she loved Ian all those years ago? Had she known even then that such an attachment could come to naught, two people so wholly unsuited to each other? When her friends were marrying and establishing their families, had she fled abroad to avoid facing the truth of her impossible feelings?

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit today, Gregory?”

“Well, there’s the point, Cora.” He ran a hand through his wavy locks and inhaled deeply. “I’m in an awful fix and don’t know quite where to turn.” His features seemed drawn, red rims and hollows beneath his eyes. Corinna remembered his drunken speech from the night before.

“Come sit down,” she said, “and tell me how I can help you.”

He moved toward her, then seemed to think better of it and crossed the room with an agitated air.

“That’s the crux of it,” he said, raking his hand through his hair again, “I’m not certain anyone can help me with this.” He pivoted around, his face a portrait of distress. “But Ian won’t listen to me and I cannot take it to anyone else. I thought I might speak to Mallory, but he’s preoccupied with Evie, so ill every day from her condition. Anyway, you’re better connected than he is with those who count.”

“Not at all. Lord Mallory has considerably more influence than I do, Gregory.” Alarm prickled at the back of her neck. “What is this about?”

He threw himself onto an ottoman at her feet. “I’m being blackmailed.”

“Good heavens. By whom?”

“Well, I don’t know that I should say. But it’s quite a nasty business, and it’s only going to get nastier unless I can find my way out of it. But it’s no use. I’ve tried to come up with a solution, but there just isn’t one.”

She stood, went to the door, and requested the footman to bring tea. She returned to Gregory.

“Now,” she said, “while we wait for the tea you will decide exactly what information I must know to assist you, and which information you can keep concealed. After the tea arrives, you will tell me everything and together we will try to devise a plan. In any case, you look like you could use a cup of something other than brandy.”

His guilty gaze shot to hers.

“Were you drinking all night, Gregory?”

“Until I— Well—” He halted then looked her in the eye. “Until Ian discovered me and brought me home and put me to bed.”

“Does he know you are here?”

“Good God, no! He would horsewhip me for it.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t thought her heart had anything left to be wrung out of it, but apparently she was mistaken.

“Don’t misunderstand me, Cora. Ian thinks the world of you. He said so just the other day, and I’m that glad the two of you have mended fences. I always thought you would get along like cakes and ale if you had a mind to it.”

He thought the world of her.
Oh, how little Gregory knew about his brother.

The footman entered, deposited a silver tray laden with porcelain on the table, and departed. She poured Gregory a cup and set it before him.

“Gregory, did something happen last night?”

He drew the cup away from his mouth, surprised. “Why, yes, it did. You’re so clever, Cora, you can probably see through it all. Dashed if I don’t feel better about the whole thing already.”

“Thank you for the compliment, but why don’t you tell me what you can first and then we’ll see about mending matters.”

“You know about the gaols project Sir Robert has us all working on now? Well, not all of us. Some of the fellows are on the police program. But that’s neither here nor there.” He waved it away.

“What about the project?” she prodded.

“There’s a great lot of money involved, Cora. There’s some rebuilding going on, but mostly establishing funds to allow for paying some fellows and projects meant to prepare former criminals for work once they’re released.”

“Yes, of course. But what does it have to do with you? Is someone trying to blackmail you to affect some aspect of the project?”

He nodded. “The funds allocations. He wants them to go to his interests, mostly mercantile stocks, the East India Trading Company primarily. He has a lot of money tied up in certain ventures and needs the capital to float him through. I told him I don’t have that sort of power—I just started in the Office and don’t have anything to do with the funds allocations. But he’s insisting.” His brow was creased again, his eyes haunted.

“What hold does he have on you? You don’t owe him money, do you, or a debt of honor?”

“No. Don’t you know I wish it were that simple?”

Corinna remembered the name Gregory said the night before—Thomas—and another memory came to her, Gregory telling her how he had lost Ian’s horse because of Thomas Patterson’s poor skills at the table.

“Who is he, Gregory?”

Gregory pinned his lips together and shook his head.

“I cannot very well help you if you don’t tell me, can I?” she asked.

“Lord Patterson.”

Good heavens. Thomas Patterson’s father who had made a proposition to Amabel Weston immediately after Corinna broke it off between the baroness and Ian.

“Well, that is disappointing.” She peered at him. “But what could you possibly have done about which he can blackmail you?”

“Not me.” The words were strangled.

The words he’d said twice the night before couldn’t have been clearer.
My brother’s not a cheat
.

“Who, then?” But she already knew.

Gregory lifted a wretched face.

“Ian,” she stated.

“This is unbearable, and it’s all my fault.”

“How on earth is it your fault that your brother did something reprehensible for which you must now pay the price?”

“That’s the rub. He didn’t do anything. But Patterson says he has proof Ian cheated at cards, and he’s in league with Sparks, who claims—”

“Sparks?” Corinna’s stomach lurched.

“That’s the fellow Ian played against at the Alverston ball those weeks ago, the sharper. He beat me before that, and trounced Thomas Patterson furiously. Ian took on the game to get back at him, and he played it fair and square. But now Sparks is claiming he cheated, set up the whole rig. Says he’s got proof of it.”

Corinna’s heart sped, her mouth dust. Ian hadn’t cheated. She must have accidentally, and now he and Gregory would pay the price for it. Merciful heaven, how could this be happening? Her conscience slapped her with her own pride. She’d always thought Ian held the prize for arrogance, but she trumped him by far. She had tried to live another’s life for weeks, and the penalty for it seemed never ending.

“Patterson used to hate Sparks. Told Thomas never to go near the sharper. But he hates Ian more.” He cast Corinna a sideways glance. “Some personal matter, I suppose,” he mumbled.

She stared blankly at the tea tray. It could be any number of things, but Lady Weston must play a part in it. Perhaps when she refused Lord Patterson, the baroness had compared him unfavorably to her former lover. Lady Weston was a tabby, after all. And now that Corinna knew the power Ian Chance could hold over a woman’s heart, she wouldn’t put such intervention past the widow.

“I don’t know how to wrest myself out of this, Cora.” Gregory shook his head. “Or Ian.”

Seeking steadiness, she took up her tea.

“Why don’t you take this to Sir Robert?”

Gregory’s eyes opened wide. “No. Absolutely not.”

“But it seems that he has the greatest power in this situation, and a great deal at stake here. Perhaps if you told him—”

“No.”

“Why not?”

His brows lowered, his usually smiling mouth a line again. “I suppose you might not know, given that you don’t follow gossip. I was too young myself to get the gist of it, but some years back Grace explained it to me. Ian had the devil of a time living down my father’s reputation. All the rags and tattles had it that he was cut from the same cloth as our father. He never said a word to deny it. But he worked hard so he wouldn’t have to, playing fair and honest at cards, dice, the races, all of it.”

“But I don’t understand. If he does not cheat, how can it hurt him for you to tell Sir Robert about Patterson’s threat?”

“If Sparks thinks he can bamboozle me with this, he’s got to be holding the proof close to his vest. He won’t produce it until he’s certain it’ll do him good. I won’t be the one to spill it to anyone before that. Once it’s out, everyone will know, and Ian won’t hear the end of it. I can’t do that to him.” He hung his head, a portrait of dejection.

Corinna set down her cup with a rattle. “Gregory, you must tell your brother and allow him to decide what course of action to take. It is his reputation at stake, after all.”

His head poked up. “I tried to tell him last night, though not very well. Three sheets to the wind, don’t you know,” he said sheepishly. “But I don’t think he wanted to listen anyway. Seemed like he had something else on his mind. If I didn’t know my brother better, I’d say he was vexed. But I’ve never known Ian cross a day in his life, so that couldn’t have been it. Must’ve been the drink muddling my brains.” He shrugged.

Could he have been angry about her? Did he regret kissing her?

“I’ll tell him,” Gregory said slowly, “if you’ll go with me.”

She shook her head. “It isn’t my business, Gregory. It’s best kept in the family.”

“Right, our whole family, four days from now, at least.” He stood up. “You’ve got to come, Cora, or I won’t do it.”

She rose. “Gregory, this attitude does not become you. You are not a child any longer.”

He folded his arms across his chest in a gesture that resembled Ian so well that her lungs felt abruptly empty.

He adored Ian, the brother who raised him after their father died, protected their family and made it right for all of them again. He was terrified of hurting him. And she was to be his buffer.

“Gregory, I assure you, I am not the best person for this. Perhaps your mother—”

He gave her an incredulous look.

“Lady Dare, then?” she suggested.

His brow drew down. “Cora, there’s no one I respect as much as my brother, except you. Please.”

Their gazes locked in silent combat. But if Ian’s reputation was at stake, she could not deny Gregory this. She nodded.

Gregory’s face brightened instantly. “He’s gone for a ride. I waited until he’d left to come over here. We can catch up with him, though.” He hurried from the parlor, and she heard him tell the butler to have her horse readied. He stuck his head back in the room. “Need to put on something else, my dear?”