Ruthless Charmer (22 page)

Predictably, the next day's light would bring the walls up around her again, and acting as if nothing happened, Claudia would spill into her day, retreating behind a whirlwind of activity that left him breathless.

To be with a woman who was not infatuated with him was new and perplexing to Julian. And as he had raised four girls into four perfect women, he was hardly inexperienced in the ways women thought and behaved. But Claudia was a very different experience. In addition to the walls she put up, she also had some rather unconventional ideas in that pretty head of hers. And she was quite fearless, too, having lost, apparently, any feelings of helplessness she might have had in the beginning.

First of all, there was the matter of her afternoon teas. Once a week, a parade of twenty women, including his three sisters, would converge on Kettering House and crowd into the main sitting room. In the course of what should have been a refined gathering of ladies, one would hear shouts of laughter, shrieks of excitement, and the emphatic voices of debate quite plainly from behind the closed doors. After a couple of hours of that, the doors would suddenly swing open, and the ladies would march out, all sporting a gleam in their eyes that made grown men shudder.

Julian had discovered the teas quite by accident, when one day he happened to catch two young footmen snickering outside the doors. Once he understood what they were about he chastised them, sent them on their way
. . .
then lingered to listen. Yet in the space of a week or two, several male servants gathered around those doors—along with Julian—their eyes often rounding with shock or their faces blanching at the things being said. And they scattered like chicks whenever they heard anything that even remotely sounded as if the ladies were coming near the door. The last straw for the house servants was the day that, in spite of their dire warnings, Tinley entered the inner sanctum with a fresh pot of tea . . . and did not come out.

If Julian harbored any notion that he might keep the teas his little secret, he was quickly corrected one afternoon at White's. Adrian Spence, Alex Christian, the Duke of Sutherland, along with Victor and Louis, descended on him like an attacking horde of geese, demanding that he stop the teas at once. They insisted his wife was perhaps a bit deranged and definitely in need of a strong hand. Because, in addition to smoking his cheroots made of a special American tobacco and drinking his port—which the duke claimed was a bit like kissing a chap who had just come from White's—Claudia and her ladies were exploring new concepts in women's equality that had every man feeling embattled in his home. It seemed that the ladies were insisting on some rather intolerable changes, including learning about the parliamentary process and the system of suffrage in England, the very absurd notion being that women should very well vote one day. Heaven for)'end.

What the men did not know, thank God, was that the teas were not the only furious activity that had servants scrambling in his house. Someone was always rushing somewhere; Claudia seemed constantly gone off in pursuit of something to do with girls and schools, almshouses, hospitals, and a half dozen other charitable endeavors that she fancied. And when she wasn't engaged with her friends or her charities, his little nieces, Jeannine and Dierdre, were frequent visitors to Kettering House. Claudia read them stories, or marched them off to the kitchens where they painted little clay pots and planted little sprigs of violets in them. The results of their labors covered every conceivable surface in her sitting room.

More often than not, however, the girls arrived in frilly little gowns, then emerged from Claudia's rooms dressed in play costumes—as knights, or sea captains, or highwaymen. They did not aspire, apparently, to queenly thrones or other maidenly pursuits. Julian had no idea where his wife found the capes and wooden swords and red coats that transformed his nieces into little men— although he did recognize that their highwaymen masks were his neckcloths—but he assumed their play was innocent enough.

Until he discovered that Claudia fancied the girls little jockeys.

It had astounded him to discover the two little girls on Ladies Mile in Hyde Park one afternoon, riding an old mare bareback—wearing boy's short pants, no less, and oh yes, riding astride. After sending the three of them home, Julian decided not to mention the incident to Louis, who had some rather fastidious ideas about what girls should like and do. Nor did he think it necessary to mention that his footman, Robert, was overseeing their wooden sword-play on a fairly regular basis
. . .
or that Eugenie seemed to think all of these antics perfectly all right.

He rather believed Louis would appreciate his great discretion and perhaps might even return the favor one day.

All in all, living in Claudia's sphere was a little unnerving.

On one particularly crisp afternoon, Julian ventured out on the back terrace to enjoy the change in seasons and a cheroot. The crystal clear air was filled with the scent of fall, and as he wandered across the flagstones, languidly perusing fallen leaves, he spotted Claudia, all three of his sisters, Mary Whitehurst, and another young woman he did not recognize on a grassy lawn below.

Tables were set up on the outer edge of the lawn and covered with tablecloths, small vases of roses, and a variety of plates that looked to be luncheon fare. Two footmen stood nearby, ready to serve. But the women were not seated for luncheon—they were gathered about in a tight little circle, examining what looked to be a rather crudely stuffed scarecrow. Where they had found that thing was a mystery, and intrigued by it, Julian paused to see what they were about.

Claudia and Eugenie were engaged in a rather animated discussion. Nothing new in that, certainly, but as the ladies abruptly turned away from the scarecrow and started fanning out in something of a half circle, Julian realized with a shock that they were all holding pistols. Real pistols.

They took care to put an arm's length between each other, twenty paces or so back from the scarecrow. Julian watched in stunned terror as Claudia abruptly lifted her pistol and fired at the scarecrow—missing completely, of course, the bullet landing God knew where. Panic and fear seized him at once. "Claudia!" he roared, and tossing aside the cheroot, rushed down the terrace steps. Eugenie saw him first. Smiling, she waved to him as she carelessly set her pistol on the edge of a luncheon table. To Julian's horror, the thing discharged. A collective screech went up from the women and in a sudden flurry of skirts and petticoats, all six of them flung themselves down on the grass.

So did the footmen.

Claudia was the first to push herself up on her elbows and glance around at the other women as they slowly lifted their heads. "There we are! No one appears to be hurt," she announced rather cheerfully.

Julian stormed into their midst, arms akimbo. "It's a miracle none of you are hurt!" he angrily chastened them. "Ladies, come to your feet if you can, but do not touch the pistols!" he ordered, and leveled a fierce look on Claudia. The Demon's Spawn smiled. A radiant, self-satisfied smile.

And she kept smiling as Julian ascertained that no one and nothing was hurt but an old birdbath. His heart was still pounding mercilessly, and with the help of the two stunned footmen, he quickly gathered up the pistols as the ladies brushed themselves off, chattering excitedly about Eugenie's mishap. When he flashed a dark look at Ann, she proudly reported that her gun was not loaded. Eugenie mumbled that perhaps Louis did not need to know the exact details of their luncheon, to which Julian hastily and quietly agreed, and Sophie only glared at him, which he thought rather fortunate, given that she had a gun in her hand.

By the time he came to his wife, he was of a strong inclination to drag her over his knee for having scared the wits from him. He recognized the gun she held as one of his own, had the rather sinking suspicion that the ladies were all carrying their husbands' guns, and realized they had been driving about town with loaded pistols in their reticules. Good God! "What in the hell do you think you are doing?" he demanded, very gingerly taking the gun from her hand.

"Teaching them how to shoot." She said it as if it was the most natural thing in the world to say. Or do.

Julian's frown deepened. "Claudia? Do you even know how to shoot?"

"Honestly, I thought I did," she said, glancing thoughtfully at the scarecrow. "Papa showed me once."

That response only made his heart pound harder. "Someone could have been seriously harmed," he admonished her. "Why in God's name would you think to teach them to shoot?"

That earned him a dark look that suggested he was an imbecile for even asking. "Why not teach them?" she demanded. "Don't women have the right to protect themselves?"

"This has nothing to do with rights, Claudia, this has to do with keeping six women from harming themselves!"

"Then you think us too simple!"

"No," he growled, raking a menacing gaze across her.

 "Then what?"

"Claudia!" he fairly bellowed. "Women have fathers and husbands to protect them, and therefore, it is not really necessary that they—"

"That's ridiculous," she interrupted, flicking her wrist disdainfully.

"No, it is not ridiculous," he insisted. "There is a reason for physical differences between the sexes, my dear. Men guard and protect their families, women nurture their young and keep the home fires burning, and that's all there is to it. Now, if you want to learn to shoot, I will teach you. But I will not have you endanger the lives of others because of some misguided notion of women's rights!"

That was received with dead silence. From the corner of her eye, Claudia stole a glance at her guests standing about, mouths open, enthralled by the exchange between them. She mumbled something under her breath that sounded very much like "blockhead," and looked up at him, her eyes shimmering with her fury.

He responded by bestowing the fiercest look in his arsenal on her. "Do not, under any circumstance, think to show these women how to shoot again unless I am with you, or Louis or Victor is. Do I make myself perfectly clear, madam?"

Her blue-gray eyes darkened. "Perfectly clear," she muttered, and Julian actually feared whatever the hell that tone of voice meant. Feared it so much that he turned and abruptly marched from the lawn with his cache of pistols, forcing himself with each step to remember that his wife was rather unconventional, and in calmer moments, he actually adored that about her.

Days after the shooting accident, Claudia was still working doubly hard to push all thoughts of her arrogant husband from her mind. Actually, she did not allow herself to think of anything but the activities she had carefully planned for each day, because that was the only way she could keep hold of her sanity. Every moment of every day was filled with trips to her charities, or Upper Moreland Street when she could get away, impromptu invitations to friends, and even a trip or two to the textile factories in search of a site for her school. If she could find nothing else to occupy her time or her thoughts or her vision, she made sketches of the girls' school she would build one day, forcing herself to mentally count desks and chairs and slates and primers so that she would not think of him.

That usually did the trick, as funding for her school was uppermost in her thoughts these days. Unfortunately, donations promised to her before The Disaster were now, for all intents and purposes, nonexistent. What few she had received—those from Lady Violet, Ann and Eugenie, and of course, the bank draft she had received from Julian the day after her tea—were hardly enough to meet her need. Claudia had figured, based on the allowance she had negotiated from Julian, that it would take her twenty years to save the funds necessary to build a quality school—and that was assuming she never spent another farthing.

So she doggedly continued to call on old acquaintances in her quest for donations, and in the course of it, learned to accept the refusals that came with thinly veiled censure because of her scandal. She developed a humble appreciation for the few donations that were made.

Lord Dillbey didn't help matters, either. It seemed the old goat enjoyed deriding her efforts in various public places. She knew that he had taken to calling her planned school the Whitney School of Morals, Loose though They Are. Apparently, Dillbey made a joke of her everywhere he went, and she feared that those who might have contributed were loath to do so now, not when they faced certain ridicule by a powerful statesman.

It was the dilemma of the lack of donations for her school that she was trying to contemplate one afternoon in her sitting room, but her usual attempts to fill her thoughts had failed her, and it was Julian's fault. Punching her fists to her hips, she glared at her latest rendition of the school she had hung on the wall, then at the books spread across her desk. She tried, Lord God she tried to push him from her mind, put him at a safe distance, pretend he wasn't significant. As if it were humanly possible to do that! No, it was not possible, not when he came to her as he had last night, touching her in ways that made her shiver, lifting her into ethereal worlds where her body and his were indistinguishable from one another. And it seemed the harder she tried not to feel it, the more she did. Deeper and fuller and more profoundly each time. Damn him!

She abruptly lifted her hands to her face; her fingers felt cool against her heated skin as she recalled a conversation she had overheard once in the ladies' retiring room at some rout. Lady Crittendon, a beautiful woman married to a man as wealthy as Midas and as old as Father Time, was in conversation with a friend when Claudia entered the room, and proceeded to relate a chance encounter with Lord Kettering in a low, silky tone. Insisting that neither had intended anything to happen, she had implied rather boldly that they had exchanged more than a greeting. When her friend asked her if she was concerned that the Rogue might brag of his conquest, Lady Crittendon had laughed and confided that Kettering was a man who could hold his tongue very well indeed—and in all the right places. The two women had tittered gleefully, and Claudia had wondered what they meant.