My Lady, My Lord (7 page)

C
ORINNA STOOD BEFORE THE MIRROR
in Ian’s dressing chamber clad in only a pair of trousers. This time she allowed herself to look her fill.

Her eyes were rimmed with red, remnants of yet another foolish descent into misery after reading the gossip columns this morning and recalling in stark detail the horror she had lived through the previous day. But given his dissipated lifestyle, his eyes probably looked like this every day. Corinna couldn’t bring herself to care if the Earl of Chance met the cream of society at the Pattersons’ ball tonight looking as though he’d been crying. He had.
She
had.

Her gaze shifted to his other features. It was odious, but she couldn’t resist. She studied his high cheekbones, strong jaw, firm, sculpted mouth, the lock of black hair tumbling over his brow, and had to admit the worst. He might be a demon, but he was bothersomely attractive.

Women had always fawned over him. Even when they were children, all the schoolroom misses from around the neighborhood vied for his attention at parties and gatherings. Like that day at the old oak. She always suspected he’d climbed it to impress the local girls gathered at Dashbourne with their families for a summer picnic. It had started raining, and as servants hastily packed up the feast to move inside, Lady Chance asked Corinna to run and find Ian and call him back to the house.

She supposed she startled him when she approached. He fell hard from a high branch. He cried, and in her foolish seven-year-old heart she’d still held a soft spot for him. He was too wonderfully adventuresome not to admire, scaling that massive tree. She tried to comfort him, and he cried harder and cursed at her.

Corinna suspected that might have been the last time he had wept. Until yesterday.

Women still loved him. The gossip columns were full of him and his bevy of beautiful sycophants. But she always assumed his title drew them. It certainly could not be his character.

Now, with the opportunity to look at him, truly look at him without him hurling insults at her or casting her taunting leers, she saw the truth. With his clear blue eyes she assessed his broad shoulders, narrow waist, and long, strong legs. His skin was smooth and taut over well-defined muscles and an enviably firm belly, with an interesting sprinkling of dark hair on his chest that descended beneath his trousers. He was a fine figure of a man. Extraordinarily attractive. Handsome.

Gorgeous.

It was a great shame he was such a cretin.

She glanced back at his eyes. Despite the hint of red, a twinkle lurked behind the blue, so natural she didn’t have to make any effort to affect it. It was simply there. How disturbing. She always thought he put that on as an affectation to draw attention.

She really shouldn’t have cut his hair. It looked perfectly unexceptionable long. She only wanted to irk him, and that wasn’t a good motive for doing anything. She had learned that the hard way growing up a stone’s throw from Ian Chance.

She drew down the satiny lock over his brow. Best she hadn’t let the valet cut it too short. She actually liked it. It gave him a youthful air, much less imposing than the close-sheared style his father used to keep, and more playful than the overly long mane Ian had since adopted.

Two weeks earlier, if a person had asked Corinna how the Earl of Chance wore his hair, she would have said she had absolutely no idea nor any interest in the matter.

Though not a particularly vain woman, she liked to look presentable. If she were fated to live the remainder of her days as a man, she could do worse than Ian Chance. But there was no way in Hades she would agree to behave like him. Not again. Not after yesterday’s fiasco at the park.

With firm decision, she drew on a dressing gown and made her way to his study. Furnished in modestly elegant comfort, the chamber boasted plenty of bookshelves but a shamefully small collection of volumes.

She poked her head into the corridor. A footman sitting on a stool looked up.

“Milord?”

“Ask Mr. Simmons to send a message to my secretary. I would like to see him here at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.” She closed the door and moved to the large walnut desk in the center of the chamber. Settling into the chair, she looked about the room with satisfaction.

Yes, she would make herself comfortable while she inhabited Ian’s body. And if they ever had the good fortune to switch back again, he would have a library even a cretin could learn to appreciate.

~o0o~

Corinna stepped into the Pattersons’ ballroom with Ian’s mother on her arm, and felt premonition like a scald to her soul.

“I know you don’t wish to be here,” Lady Chance said, “and you’ve been an angel to bring me despite that.”
An angel?
“I shall find my friends now, and you can run away.” She paused, her attention shifting across the crowded ballroom. The Baroness of Weston stood in a cluster of gentlemen, sparkling in a gold-shot gown of frothy white silk, blue and white ribbons threaded through her fashionably short golden locks.

“Or to whomever you wish,” Lady Chance added dryly, and glided away.

Corinna took a few long breaths, trying to calm her racing heart. She should depart. Lady Chance had just given her leave to go. She did not intend to dance, of course, and she couldn’t possibly know what to do if Amabel Weston approached her. What on earth did a man say to his mistress at a respectable society ball?

She pivoted around and nearly collided with herself.

“Leaving so soon, Corrie dear?”

Somehow, dressed for a ball and in her body, Ian still managed to look like himself. It had to be his eyes—her color and shape, but his contemptuous scowl.

“What are you wearing?” She scanned the gown, a dusky green that caught the little color in her eyes. Or at least she’d thought so when she had the modiste make it up. She hadn’t worn it yet. She wore black, the costume she’d donned years ago and intended never to leave off. Black intensified the ivory pallor of her skin and amplified the darkness of her hair, lending her a dramatic, sophisticated look. Just right for her role in society as an unmarried salon mistress.

“How was your day?” he asked, ignoring her question. The tone of his voice was entirely unlike hers. Angry. He must have read the gossip column.

“Unremarkable. I remained at home until I called up the carriage to convey your mother here. She has gone to meet her friends and I was just leaving now.”

The orchestra lilted into a waltz. His eyes narrowed, clearly calculating.

“Dance with me.”

Corinna’s mouth went dry. “No.”

“You will dance with me, madam, or you will live to regret refusing.”

“I don’t know how to lead.”

“Yes, you do.”

“How could you know that?”

“We’ve danced before. Managing females never change.”

“That was thirteen years ago,” she said.

“You remember.” He did not look pleased. Corinna had the most pressing urge to bolt.

“Of course I remember,” she retorted. “I have never been insulted by a dance partner since.”

“Then perhaps you also remember that you deserved the insult you received.”

Something in the hazel eyes looked entirely foreign, like nothing Corinna had ever seen in the mirror. But she recognized it. It was the same glint she had seen years earlier in the crystal blue eyes of a nineteen-year-old boy, right after the only words she had ever regretted saying popped out of her mouth.

But it was far too late to apologize. And he clearly wasn’t in a humor for accepting an apology.

“I didn’t speak an untruth,” she said, a defensive sheen of heat creeping into her cheeks. “Your father was a cheat. Everybody knew it.”

“That hardly gave you leave to say it to my face. Or to accuse me of inevitably stepping into his footsteps.”

She gasped. “I did not say that.”

“You did.”

“You were making fun of me. I wasn’t even out, and you couldn’t prevent yourself from asking me to dance only so that you could tease me about that foolish white gown Mama made me wear. It made me look pasty, and I was all out in spots and felt absolutely wretched that night, and you were merciless.”

He did not reply, his hard gaze fixed in hers.

Corinna trembled. “I want my life back,” she uttered.

“So that you can make a fool of yourself in public, rather than of me?”

“You read about the race in the park,” she said hurriedly. “Then you must know it turned out well in the end.” Since she had walked into the ballroom, at least five grinning gentlemen had pulled out their handkerchiefs and dabbed at their eyes when she passed.

“You don’t have any idea who you’re dealing with now, do you, Corrie dear?”

A shiver of alarm passed through her. She tamped it down and set her teeth together.

“Let me guess, a rogue and a reprobate?” she replied. “And I would do it again if I could be assured of your redoubled misery.”

“Oh, you would?”

“Ah, another brilliant riposte from the wit who yesterday brought us updated observations on the weather every five minutes at the most important political gathering of the kingdom’s most influential leaders.”

Fury flared in his eyes. “Do not misstep again, Corinna,” he said, lips tight.

His contained anger and the use of her proper name alarmed her more than if he had railed. But no one threatened her without facing consequences. She would not be intimidated, especially not by Ian Chance.

“However could I do that, my lord? Oh!” she tapped a forefinger to her brow. “I have just had an excellent idea.” She smiled. “You inspired me. How nice.”

She pivoted on the heels of his silver-buckled evening shoes. The set had just finished, and she wound her way through the couples mingling about the dance floor. She found her target by the cascading peel of light laughter.

“My lady.” She bowed to Lady Weston.

“Oh, Chance, what a delight to see you here. I didn’t know you planned to attend tonight.” The coquette’s gentian eyes sparkled with playful chastisement. Her lips curved into a sparkling smile. Corinna almost lost heart.

From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of gauzy green skirt approaching, and her courage revived.

“I had not intended to come,” she said, “but I wished to speak with you tonight in particular.” Corinna glanced at the gentleman standing beside the baroness. He looked between them hesitantly. Corinna stared him down. He bowed and withdrew.

Lady Weston’s eyes shone bright. “What do you wish to say to me, Chance darling?” she breathed, her bosom threatening to tumble from her miniscule bodice as it heaved. Good heavens, was this the sort of amateur theatrics he found appealing?

“I’m afraid it will not be pleasant in the telling or the hearing.”

Her lips dipped into a pout. “Oh?”

“I wish to end our liaison, my lady.” Corinna leaned in slightly. “You simply do not appeal to me any longer, I’m afraid.”

“I appealed to you well enough five nights ago,” she replied promptly, her eyes filled with meaning.

Corinna was less than impressed, and somewhat nauseated. “Be that as it may, we will no longer be seeing each other.”

“But— But—You cannot do this to me. Not in the middle of a ballroom!”

Corinna shrugged one broad shoulder, turned, and walked straight for the door. Her heart pounded and she felt sick all over. She’d done it, and she wasn’t at all certain it was the right thing to do. But she could not help that now.

Ian caught up with her on the stairs to the foyer. He swung around before her and she was obliged to halt or knock him over.

“What did you do?” he demanded.

“You are now free of one simpering mistress,” she announced with a pasted-on smile. “I congratulate you.”

“You gave Amabel her
congé
?” he said in obvious astonishment.

“Yes, er, I believe so, if that means I told her you do not wish to see her again.”

“You—You—” he stuttered, mouth agape.

“Speechless?” She narrowed her eyes. “No doubt we are all better off for it.” She pushed past him toward the door.

“Two can play at that game, Corrie dear,” he said in a low voice.

Back to
Corrie
. No more simmering anger. This was all-out war.

She turned to meet his steely stare.

“Tell me, Lady Corinna, in your travels across the globe, did you take full advantage of your false widow’s weeds? Did you give away that prize which a husband would have taken had you the ability to catch one? Tell me the truth. Some poor fellow must have come along at some point, after all, that saw opportunity and seized it.”

Corinna blanched, her entire male body going cold. She stared in shock, aware with sickening prescience of what was coming next.

His lips curved up at one edge. “Ah, it seems you didn’t.” His attention shifted back toward the ballroom. “But I don’t see why that can’t finally be remedied tonight.” He moved around her in the direction of the crowd.

“You cannot!” she pleaded.

“Oh.” He paused. “I can. And I will.” Without another glance back, he returned to the ballroom.

Corinna stared after her body, crying inside over her yet intact maidenhead, the last remnant of hope she still carried that one day she would finally meet a man she could respect and love. Now Ian Chance, without a flicker of conscience, would ruin that too. Just as he had tried to ruin nearly everything she ever cared about her entire life.

I
AN COULDN’T DO IT
. Not even to teach Corinna Mowbray the greatest lesson of her life. His skin crawled at the mere notion of going through with it.

“More wine, my dear?” The Marquess of Abernathy placed a full glass of burgundy on the table by Ian’s knees and sat close to him. Ian shifted away and took up the glass, quaffing it in a single gulp. Where was a bottle of brandy when a man needed one? Better yet, whiskey.

“My, my, Lady Corinna,” Abernathy smiled. “You are quite the little minx, after all, aren’t you?”

Ian gave him a quick perusal. He was good looking enough, mysteriously dark in the way some women liked. Of course in his own body Ian could take him in a fight without trouble. But Amabel and her friends talked about Abernathy in hushed fascination, probably because of his reputation for deflowering virgins and bedding any woman between the ages of sixteen and sixty. She only had to be attractive.

Corinna was attractive, and apparently still a virgin. Abernathy had jumped at the lures Ian cast out at the ball. He could have met the marquess in a room at the Patterson house and created sufficient scandal that way. But to dig in the blade more deeply he allowed them to be seen leaving together.

At the time it had seemed an excellent idea. But in his haste to make Corinna pay for what she’d done with Amabel, he hadn’t exactly thought through this farce.

He stood and went to the window.

“My lord,” he said, trying to maintain his nonchalance. “I wonder if you might give me a moment alone.” He cast the marquess a meaning-filled glance. “To prepare.”

“Certainly, my dear.” Abernathy moved toward him and took a strand of Corinna’s shining hair between his fingers, bringing it to his lips. Inwardly Ian squirmed. “But don’t delay long. I am impatient to begin our evening.”

The parlor door closed with a click. Ian locked it.

“Patience is a useful virtue to cultivate, my lord,” he mumbled, and went to the window facing out onto the house’s rear garden. He wiggled the lock and it held. Casting about the chamber, he noticed the fireplace poker. He hefted it up with his little hands and knocked it against the latch. It fell apart into two broken pieces, and a fissure appeared in the adjacent windowpane.

Ian slid the sash up and sat on the sill. The skirts made it difficult to maneuver, but with a few tearing sounds he got his legs over and onto the other side. It was less than a five-foot drop to the terrace, then out into the garden. A rear gate, illuminated by a lamp, let out into the alley to the mews. Ian hoped it wasn’t padlocked.

Wonderfully, it was not.

He started walking. Mist had settled on the streets and London shone black and silver. Half a block away from his street, a hand snaked out of the darkness and grabbed his arm. He jerked away, but his strength wasn’t his own and his silk slippers skidded on the damp pavement.

“There’s a good girl,” a rough voice came at his ear. “Don’t give ol’ Pepper any trouble and ol’ Pepper won’t give you none.” Rough hands gripped Ian’s arms and swung him around. About a decade Ian’s senior, he lacked several teeth, his breath a fetid bouquet of blue ruin and onions.

Ian jammed his knee upward, but the skirt hampered him and ol’ Pepper was ready for it. He shook Ian, then lifted a hand and slapped the base of his palm across his cheek. Pain erupted across Ian’s face and stars burst in the dark. He shook his head. There were some advantages to hanging around London’s seediest hells in his younger years. Street fighting had become one of his specialties.

He slammed his heel onto the footpad’s instep and brought his elbow up into his nose. Ol’ Pepper screamed, then flailed his arms, grabbing at Ian again as his nose erupted with blood. His fingertips dugs into Ian’s wrists and he snapped his teeth, a gaslight nearby illuminating the crimson seeping over his lips.

“Now look what you’ve done, wench. You’ve gone and made ol’ Pepper angry. I told you not to do that.”

From the darkness a fist collided with Pepper’s cheek and the thief’s fingers loosened. He turned to face his attacker. An arm wrapped around his neck and dragged him from the pool of light. But Ian could see well enough what was happening. His brother and Jag were beating the pulp out of the fellow.

Finally they backed off, leaving the footpad groaning in pain on the street.

Gregory wiped his hands on his pantaloons and started jogging away. “Off to rally the Watch,” he called back. “Just passed them on the other side of the square. Be back in a jiff, Lady Corinna.”

Ian ran his hand over his smarting cheek and turned to his friend.

Jag’s brow sat low. “Are you all right, my lady?”

Far from it at present.

Ian nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”

“All in the line of duty, ma’am.” Jag bowed and smiled. Ian had the irrational urge to slug his friend. As a second son, John Grace had gone to war at a young age. When Napoleon was finally routed, he had returned to the sudden deaths of his father and older brother and an estate gone to seed. But the soldier still clung to him, in both his stance and integrity. Ian forgot that most of the time.

“It’s fortunate that the two of you happened by,” he said.

“Lucky that.” Jag peered at him. He didn’t ask what Corinna was doing in the street by herself late at night.

Ian decided to let him wonder. He needed to get home. To his own home. He must tell Corinna nothing had happened with Abernathy. The footpad grunting in misery on the ground bore home Ian’s own ruthlessness with alarming clarity. The thief wanted to steal Corinna’s purse, no doubt, and possibly more. But Ian had wanted to steal something much dearer. Her self-respect.

Why after so many years of tormenting her he should finally realize this in the middle of the night on a dark street in the presence of his friend and his brother and the damn blast Watch, Ian had no notion.

“Here’s the villain,” Gregory said to the men following him. “Take him away, my good fellows.”

The older of the two Watch officers lifted a graying brow and cast Gregory an indulgent smile, then glanced at Ian as the other went to the footpad and trussed his hands behind his back.

“You all right with these gents, ma’am?” he asked, gesturing to Ian’s brother and Grace.

“Yes. I am acquainted with them and my home is only there.”

The officer nodded and watched the other officer drag the footpad off the ground and push him into motion. “Then, good evening, ma’am, milords.” He tipped his round-topped hat, and the three disappeared into the blackness.

“Allow us to escort you home, Lady Corinna.” Gregory extended his arm.

His brother had always liked Corinna and her family. At one time, Mowbray and Ian’s father had considered betrothing Greg to one of Mowbray’s younger daughters, but Ian’s father couldn’t decide on a suitable dowry price and Mowbray lost patience. Still, the families practically grew up on each other’s estates, celebrating holidays together and even sharing the services of art tutors and dancing masters.

Ian hadn’t danced with Corinna only once, as he had reminded her at the ball earlier. He’d danced with her countless times when they were children, pulling her braids, getting her into trouble with the dancing master, and generally making her miserable as often as possible.

He took his brother’s arm. “I must be quite a sight. I don’t wish to alarm my father if he’s still awake. Are you going to your brother’s house?”

Gregory nodded.

“Could you take me there first, so that I might make myself presentable before returning home?”

Greg shot a glance over his bonnet. Ian turned and met Jag’s gaze with firm intention, just like Corinna would.

Jag looked sober. “I don’t know that that would be the best course of action. Lady Chance is not in residence.”

Ian turned back to Gregory. “I must speak with him. Tonight.”

Gregory looked surprised.

Ian squeezed his brother’s arm with his woman’s slender hand. “Please.”

Greg nodded.

Jag followed them along the sidewalk. Ian had thoroughly shredded Corinna’s reputation tonight. This little promenade wasn’t helping any, but he knew his friends wouldn’t speak of it to anyone but each other.

Simmons opened the front door and peered closely at Ian as they entered the foyer.

“Is my brother about, Simmons?” Gregory removed Ian’s cloak, not hiding his grimace when he looked at Ian’s face in the light. His jaw was tender. There must be a welt, or at least redness where the footpad had struck him.

“I will inform him of your call, Master Gregory,” the butler said. “And I will have tea sent to the blue parlor.”

“Thanks, old fellow,” Gregory said.

“Master Gregory,” Simmons said, “May I suggest that you invite Lady Corinna to retire to Lady Chance’s unused chamber at this time? I will send a maid to assist her.”

Gregory patted Ian’s hand. “Sounds like a capital idea. We’ll see you in the parlor when you wish, Lady Corinna.” He flashed an open smile and Ian followed Simmons to his mother’s room.

The mark on Corinna’s tender skin didn’t appear too serious. It would fade within a day or two. Ian didn’t know the first thing about freshening up, only that women seemed to do it just when a man had something entirely else on his mind and in his breeches. He washed his hands and sprinkled water over his face, dried both, and let the maid lead him to the parlor.

Corinna was watching the door when he entered. It was still disconcerting, seeing himself in this manner. But the expression in the Chance eyes was entirely hers, condemning and disdainful.

“Gentlemen,” Ian said evenly, “I would like to speak with Lord Chance alone.”

“Ian—”

“No, Gregory.” She lifted a staying palm. “All possible damage has already been done this evening. Lady Corinna has nothing to fear from me. When we are finished speaking you may escort her home.”

Jag and Gregory left without comment. Ian closed the door then leaned back against it. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think?” Her eyes were colder than Ian had ever seen them. But perhaps that was a trick of perception; the light blue emphasized her disdain so much more effectively than her hazel eyes always had.

He stepped forward. “Not entirely too late.”

“There is no such thing as a partial ruination of a woman’s reputation, Ian. It is either whole or in pieces.”

“I can mend it.”

“Oh, really? And when did you decide to do that, before or after you gave away my virginity to a reprobate just possibly even more despicable than yourself?”

“I did not. I could not.”

She remained silent for a moment, offering no evidence of either relief or surprise. “I see. Well, I suppose your masculinity is still comfortably secure, if not my future among polite society.” Her voice—
his
voice—dripped scorn. Was he that effective in sounding so disgusted when he spoke to her?

He moved toward her. “You may not wish to hear this, but you have the ability to mend your reputation yourself.”

“Pray, tell,” she sneered.

“Call him out.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Call him out. Abernathy impresses the ladies with his charm and looks, but he has the heart of a coward. He won’t meet you.”

“And what if he does?” she exclaimed, finally animating. “What if he decides he can best you and I am left to meet him on the field at dawn with a weapon I have never used in my life?”

“He won’t. I’m accounted one of the best shots in the kingdom, and not unhandy with a sword. He wouldn’t dare.”

“What if he does dare?” She retreated a step, enlarging the distance between them. “You are the most astoundingly arrogant person I have ever met, Ian Chance. You hurled me into this disaster and now you expect me to claw myself out of it, with such a great potential for danger?” She turned away from him. “Go away. Go back to my house and my life and leave me alone forever.”

“Corinna—”

“Go
.
”
Her voice broke. As though it had happened yesterday, the sound catapulted Ian back to a hilltop in the rain beneath the branches of a massive oak, pain streaking through his wrist, and a little girl’s concerned face.

He pivoted around and made for the door. Damn and blast her infernal tears, and damn and blast her derision. He needed that like he’d needed it his entire life—like a hole in the head. A hole that he probably deserved. From the tip of a saber or the bullet of a pistol, Ian didn’t particularly care which.