My Lady, My Lord (9 page)

“Thank you. Of course now everyone will speculate on the reason you leaped to defend my honor.”

“Better the devil you know. But it is well known that our families have been familiar for years. Gregory would have done the same.”

“He did do the same, last night.”

Ian smiled. In actual pleasure. He hadn’t done so wearing her face yet. And she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him do so wearing his own face either. The discomfort in her chest loosened.

“Ian, that reminds me—”

“Ah, yes, your hopes for our retransformation.”

“No. I mean to say, not yet. Gregory shared some news with me this morning.”

“What news?”

“It seems that last night he played deep with a man named Sparks. He lost a great deal, but mostly in attempting to pull his friend Thomas Patterson out of trouble.”

She paused. His lips had thinned, but he did not speak.

“When he lost more than he had at hand,” she continued, “Mr. Sparks did not ask for a vowel of money, but insisted upon a horse. One of yours, I believe.”

“Which horse? Did Gregory give it a name?”

“Bucephalus.”

He turned his face away.

“Is it an important horse to you?”

A missed beat. “Not any longer.”

It must be. Corinna knew of only one thing that disturbed Ian Chance’s devil-may-care posture. Her. But this time she was not the reason for his sudden severity.

“Buy him back,” she said.

“Joseph Sparks is not in the business of keeping racing horses. He did not demand the animal in order to sell it back to me.”

“He holds a grudge against you?”

He remained silent.

“Can you win him back?”

He set a steady gaze upon her. “Not while I am Corinna Mowbray.”

“Why not? Ladies play deep.”

“Not you. Especially not on the heels of this fiasco.” He gestured toward White’s.

She bit her lip. “I could. That is to say, you could. I wouldn’t mind it.” What was she saying? He was correct about her unstable reputation. She could not risk it again so soon merely to win him back a horse. She must be exhausted. She couldn’t be thinking straight. “I would like to.”

“I will not allow it.”

Her neck bristled, a much more comfortably familiar sensation than the empty ache in her middle. “You won’t
allow
it? Who do you think you are?”

“When I have determined that, I will gladly inform you.” He pulled the door shut, rapped on the ceiling, and the carriage pulled away. Corinna stared after it.

He had not stayed to hear about her idea concerning the exhibition. But perhaps he also realized it was Sunday. The museum, of course, was closed.

I
AN FISTED THE CUT CRYSTAL GLASS
and lifted it to his lips. After favoring him with a surprisingly measured speech about the merits of discretion, Mowbray had gone to his club for the day. Ian had no one he wished to see, and he wouldn’t accept callers. News would travel swiftly, and too many false well-wishers always spoiled the fun.

Anyway, he didn’t like Corinna’s friends. He didn’t really know most of them, but if Giles Fitzhugh was an example, he didn’t want to.

Sinking into a chair in the library, he swirled his brandy, appreciating Mowbray’s selection and sorry there seemed to be so little of it in the sideboard. But there were other beverages, and Ian didn’t feel particular today.

He finished the dram in a single swallow and went for more. The library was a pleasant enough place. Ian tended to read journals rather than books, but the furniture was comfortable. He glanced at the shelves by the sideboard as he poured, leather-bound volumes stacked side by side by the hundreds.

A small mirror hung beside a bookcase. Ian looked into it and her sober hazel eyes stared back at him, framed by long, dark lashes.

He hadn’t allowed himself to look at Corinna with the eyes of an appreciative man for years. The last time he did, she’d crushed him. He had come home from his first year at Oxford to find her blossomed into a beauty. At his mother’s ball, he asked her to dance. Ladies never seemed unhappy with his company, and already that night a young Ace of Spades had suggested he visit her bedchamber after the party. But he’d only had attention for the girl who had plagued him his entire life.

He never regretted a mistake so thoroughly. Merely sixteen, and already she had known precisely how to shatter a man’s hopes with a few carefully chosen words.

Ian scowled and looked away from his reflection to the stacks of books. He needed more brandy. And distraction. He perused the shelves until his gaze alighted on one title embossed in gold. He released a slow breath. The gods had no sympathy for him this day. Perhaps even this lifetime.

He pried the volume of Plutarch loose from its companions and opened to the lines he had memorized nearly before his legs had been long enough to straddle a horse. He closed his eyes.

“Look thee out a kingdom equal to and worthy of thyself,” he recited quietly. “For Macedonia is too little for thee.” So King Philip of Macedon had said to his son after Alexander tamed the wild Bucephalus.

Alexander, who would be conqueror of the world.

Ian lifted his palms to his face.

Bucephalus
, in the hands of a card sharp—his first and greatest venture at breeding and still the prize stud of his stable. But Bucephalus was even more than that. With that animal and the success he’d won through it, Ian had escaped his father’s legacy. Honest work had created Bucephalus, and with him he’d built a kingdom to be proud of.

His kingdom, now in the hands of a woman who thought such pursuits unworthy of merit.

He opened his eyes. The letters on the page danced.

Damn Corinna Mowbray. Damn her disdain and cutting remarks and especially damn her willingness to help him.

He stood abruptly. The room spun. Good Lord, he hadn’t drunk very much. He blinked, peered down at his small feet and the hem of the delicate gown, and suspected he had, in fact, drunk far too much under the present circumstances.

He headed toward the door, swaying, accidentally making a pass at a copper-bonded globe of the world. It clattered to the floor with a racket. In the corridor the footman popped up from a chair, eyes wide. Ian frowned him down and ascended the stair. He pushed open the door to Corinna’s bedchamber then bolted it behind him.

Sleep.

His bottle-bottom gaze fixed on the bed, draped in frothy silks and piled with satin.
Not
a bed for Corinna Mowbray. This was a bed for a woman with more sensibility than sense. Corinna had oodles of the latter. Lacked the former entirely. What was she doing with a real female’s bed? A bed a man could so easily imagine her spread naked upon, her thick brown-gold hair cascading about her, her eyes warm and welcoming with desire.

He shook his head hard. The vision did not dissipate. He shook it again. The imaginary Corinna lifted her hand and beckoned.

Dear God, he must sleep.

He staggered to the dressing table, picking at the hooks up his back. Grunting in frustration, he grabbed the edges and pulled. Fabric ripped. He pushed the dress and petticoat off. He’d never disrobed a lady so cursorily. He preferred to take his time, increase her pleasure and his.

This was no pleasure for him. Rather, punishment. He stripped off corset, shift, drawers, and stockings and stood before the mirror.

She was beautiful, and it turned his stomach. He slipped his hand between her thighs, stroked her silken folds, and felt nothing. No pleasure, no stirring. Nothing. Perhaps it was the drink. But probably it was the woman. He was the greatest fool imaginable.

He staggered to the bed and collapsed upon it.

When he awoke, the honeysuckle air was shrouded in moonlight-dappled darkness. He pulled himself up, dizzy from the brandy’s aftereffects, and grasped the bell rope. A maid appeared and relit the fire, then another helped him to dress. On unsteady legs, he descended to the foyer, gathered a cloak, and set off toward his house.

His butler opened the door. Simmons actually paused before speaking. “Lady Chance is not in at present, my lady.”

“I would like to see the earl, Simmons.”

“As you wish, my lady. Would you be so kind as to wait in the withdrawing room?”

Ian repaired to the chamber he rarely used. He met with his secretary in his office, and with the exception of Jag and Stoopie, who never strayed far from the liquor cabinets in the parlor or the billiards room, he invited few others into his home. His mother used this chamber to entertain callers when she stayed at his house, so he reserved it for her. Thank God she’d decided to put up with her sister, Lady Upton, on this visit to town.

Corinna appeared within minutes but she remained by the door and she did not speak. A miracle.

“What is your theory?” he said.

She folded her hands. “Something at the exhibit caused this to occur.”

“Something?”

“I rather think the Aphrodite statue.” She fidgeted and pulled her lower lip into her mouth. It looked absurd. The ache in Ian’s head intensified.

“It seems unlikely,” he said. “That deity, in particular.”

“Yes.”

Silence stretched between them.

“Let’s go.” He strode toward the door.

“Now? Tonight? It is ten o’clock on a Sunday. The exhibition hall is closed.”

“Then use my influence to gain us entrance. If that doesn’t suffice, guards are often susceptible to bribery.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m a cheat, remember? You may as well add extortionist to that.”

“You don’t usually bribe people, do you?” She sounded hopeful.

He turned a hard look upon her. “Believe what you wish about me, Corinna. It affects me absolutely not at all.”

She called for his carriage. Ian drew the hood of her cloak over his head before leaving the house and climbing into the vehicle. The ride was quick, the streets quiet of traffic.

At the museum, Corinna offered his calling card to the guard and he allowed them entrance. The young fellow must be one of his mother’s pet projects—an orphan or chimney sweep yanked from the streets before his pretty face got him into worse trouble. The guard followed them to the exhibition chamber.

Corinna paused, but Ian went straight to the statue. Best to have this farce over with quickly so he could settle down to the hell of being Corinna Mowbray for the remainder of his life.

“Thank you,” she said to the guard. “Oh, pardon me, but would you happen to know of an elderly woman—quite elderly, in fact—with a silver-tipped walking stick who visits the museum nearly every day?”

“No, ma’am. But I’m on the night call, so I don’t oft meet the visitors.”

“All right. That will be all for now, then. May we have use of your lamp?”

She approached in a halo of golden light. Ian turned his attention to the statue. He couldn’t bear to look at her. At either of them. His insides twisted, like nothing he’d ever felt before; futile, hard desire and frustration mingled with anger so powerful he feared that if he so much as glanced at his own hand he would do something rash. Something regrettable.

“What would you have us do now?” he said.

“Well, say something to her, I guess.”

“You guess? All your studies and impressive gatherings of the greatest minds in England, and now you guess?”

“I have started researching as best I can,” she said, a note of desperation in her voice that Ian was glad to hear. He hoped she was suffering as greatly as he. But he wouldn’t wager on it.

“There is nothing about corporeal transference in any of the books I found, and it isn’t as though I can simply ask advice of anyone. I am trying, but I don’t know what to do.”

“And yet here we are.”

She made a sound of displeasure.

“Hello?” she said, her tone clearer. Ian looked at her. She was peering at the statue’s face. “Can you hear us? Or perhaps see us?”

“Oh, that’s exceptionally clever, Corrie dear. If only I could be so vastly clever.”

“He doesn’t mean it.” She spoke swiftly to the stone goddess. “He is unhappy with this situation. But you see, we really are not all that hateful to each other. I realize our quarrel the other day just in this spot seemed rather virulent. But we don’t typically quarrel. We think very highly of each other, in fact.”

Ian stared at her, his brow creasing. She continued.

“You needn’t have switched us. I understand now that I should not have called him a reprobate, and his friends are quite chivalrous, after all, saving me—that is to say,
him,
last night, because of course they did not know it was not me.”

“They’re decent fellows,” Ian muttered.

She darted him an expressive glance, then returned her attention to the statue. “And Lord Chance is coming to like my friends as well. Why, he spent an evening with a gentleman who is courting me, so that should count for something, shouldn’t it?” She pressed her hands together and waggled her head, gesturing for him to speak.

Ian cleared his throat. “She’s an agreeable lady.” The words stuck at the back of his tongue. He cleared his throat again. “She is, of course, intelligent. Exceptionally so. And good to her father.” This was nonsense. Deuced foolish. “Her friends all admire her hugely, she’s well respected by her servants, and her taste in furnishings is superior.”

She flicked a glance at him before readdressing the statue.

“So, you see, you may as well go ahead and return us to our own selves,” she said. “We are quite happy with each other and have learned a very important lesson we shan’t soon forget.”

Ian found himself holding his breath and nearly laughed aloud at the absurdity of it. Instead, as amber light seemed to emanate from the little goddess, his mouth fell open. Corinna remained perfectly still beside him as the glow intensified, stealing out into the lamp-lit dimness in misty tendrils.

Her hand found his and he laced their fingers together.

The light expanded, reaching toward them, swirling before their chests, hovering, then creeping closer. Slowly, building like the swell of a wave, the sparkling mist advanced.

It burst upon them. Hit hard, Ian staggered back, his eyes squeezing shut and his lungs knocked free of air. Shaking his head, he righted himself, his boots scuffing the chamber’s hardwood floor.

Boots?

His eyes snapped open, darting downward. He choked on astonishment.
Boots
. Breeches. Coat, waistcoat, cravat. All on
his
limbs. He reached for his face and chest. His jaw was rough with a day’s whisker growth, his body solid. He scrubbed his hand through his short hair.

“Oh, good heavens,” Corinna said, her voice thin with amazement.

Her
voice.
Not
emanating from within his head. Beside him.

He swallowed rapidly, repeatedly.

But, no. It couldn’t be. This was too easy. His tortuous imprisonment could not have come to an end so swiftly, with such little effort. He swung around to her. She stared at the statue. It no longer glowed, but two spots of color stained Corinna’s smooth cheeks. She turned to him, her green-gold eyes wide.

“I—”

“Perhaps this is only an illusion,” he said hastily. He’d drunk too much brandy. Corinna’s slight body couldn’t manage that sort of thing. He ought to have thought of that before he indulged. Anyway, it hadn’t sufficed. A peculiar desperation still clung to him like a sodden garment. And now stupefaction as well.

“An illusion?” She appeared bemused.
She
. The woman standing before him. But she didn’t prattle on, which never happened, so perhaps he was imagining it. Perhaps he was presently looking into a mirror.

Panic seized him, spinning through the desperation. He
must know
if this was real. His head whirled. Sight was unreliable. His other senses must prove it. He grasped her upper arms. She was tangible, slender, delicate. Like a woman. Her dusky lips parted.

“Ian, what are you doing?” Her eyes scanned his face, bright with alarm.

He bent his head and covered her mouth with his.

Relief washed through him.

Woman
. Sweet, soft woman. He was holding a woman. Not an illusion. Nothing imaginary could feel this much like a feminine body, could feel this good. A deep sound of satisfaction came from his chest.
His
chest.

His unsteady senses swam. She tasted like brandy, sumptuous and hot. Her honeysuckle fragrance tangled in his nostrils. He breathed her in and ran the tip of his tongue along her lower lip. She parted them.

Sound
. A woman’s sigh.

Her mouth was supple, hot inside. Inviting. He tasted her, drinking in her heat, the lush, damp flesh of her mouth, her tongue’s tentative responses to his strokes. Woman, pure woman. Her hands sought his waist, gripping momentarily, then sliding to his chest. Desire thick as a flood poured through him, her hands on him as though in a dream, but the reality so much richer, stealing his reason.