The Bride Price (16 page)

“You are full of pretty words.” She tried to control the tremor in her voice.

“I prefer to think of them as cunning,” he whispered against her skin, the waves skimming the hairs at her nape. “A good hunter uses everything at his disposal. And once he finds his prey, he never lets go.”

Something in her objected to being prey, but something much larger and more insidious wanted nothing more than to have him catch her and never let go. To be the focus of all that dark, heady, uncontrollable passion.

Her heart constricted and she pushed away from him, unwilling to let the pattering beat convert to untold want. She swallowed. “Good afternoon, Mr. Deville.”

He ran a finger beneath her chin. “I’ll see you soon, Caroline.”

He strode down the path, and her eyes followed his well-formed backside. Her fingers went unwillingly to her lips, then she jerked them away and hurried inside to the kitchen table. She wanted to see the paper before he realized she had taken it. She needed to see what he kept so hidden.

Caroline brushed her fingers over the crumpled paper, the image coming alive as her fingertips smoothed the surface, pulled the edges, softly flattening it. She caught her breath. Spider lines and spindle marks, a face etched in despair. As if the artist had understood exactly the emotions defined. The man in the picture
pleaded
with her. She ran fingers along the back of the paper. Dug into every line, like the sharpened chalk to the paper. The hope quenched. A wretched existence returning.

She recognized the face. The amazing likeness. The first man kicked out of the competition. The rules not allowing him another chance at the prize. The jeering from Bateman, the anger from his father, the despair.

Something deep inside her stirred, awakened,
strained at the chains she’d created. The picture, the curves, reached in and curled around the straight lines she had constructed.

She swallowed. Deville couldn’t have drawn this. He must have acquired it from another source. Someone else must have dropped it in her garden, and he’d picked it up from the bushes.

Don’t think about the improvements he made to the Roseford sketch.

She examined the emotion inherent in every line. Empathy and knowledge, a vulnerability that someone like Sebastien Deville could never possess. No, it had to be someone else who drew this. Deville must have stolen it from someone, then crammed it into his pocket. Evidence of his marauding ways, not his artistic talents. Not evidence of any depths.

Footsteps carried back along the stone path, and she frantically searched her kitchen. She couldn’t crumple the paper. That Deville had done so once was criminal. She shoved the paper under a pot and hurried to the window. Peeking through the filmy covering, she could see him searching the area near the bench, a deep, intense look on his face.

A last look at the cottage had her pulling back. He was gone when she worked up the nerve to look back through.

He was the artist.

She jumped as a pot crashed in the kitchen. Her hand pressed against her chest, urging the erratic beat to slow.

Sebastien Deville was slowly driving her mad.

In an estate the size of Meadowbrook, with the dazzling array of staff and diabolical excess, one can only think that some of the contestants who are hanging on to the fringe—and of them there are many!—do so in order to continue enjoying the largesse and notoriety. That every man with a stake in this competition is jockeying for that extra bit of advantage is assured. It is not only a competition in the physical and mental sense, but in the emotional as well. Only the strong will prevail, and even they may not escape unscathed.

“T
he last game before we break is a gentleman’s quest. As this is a more subjective game, we have fifteen gentlemen scoring contestants on a variety of subjects. Three judges will sit at each of the five stations. Conversation, dress, deportment, strategy, and academia will be tested. Any of the judges may ask questions. The average of the three judges’ scores will determine your total at each station.”

Multiple adjudicators would limit some of the
bias involved. Though it was still a subjective game. A bloody pony show for sure. Sebastien smiled at Cheevers instead of baring his teeth in the manner he really wished.

Revenge.

He calmly drew a lot to determine order. A number of the ladies tittered and moved within range to overhear what was being discussed at the stations.

It wasn’t until the conversation task, when he was chatting about politics and laws, that Sebastien noticed the rush of the tide. The ladies were twitching in their seats. Flashed ankles, dampened dresses, a slipped bodice revealing taut brown nipples. Everly, who was sitting with him at the station, completely dropped his train of thought halfway through a sentence.

“Mr. Everly? The Corn Laws?”

But Everly’s face was transfixed.

“I think they need to be examined, of course,” Sebastien answered smoothly, as Everly tried to tear his eyes away from a particularly ripe set of breasts. “Discussion and debate are the hallmarks of a gentleman.”

And these men supported the laws to the utmost.

“Yes,” Everly said, one last look at the deep slope. “Gentle swells…that is, gentlemen, swells that they are, know what is what.”

Another man damned by woman.

The older men looked to each other, puzzled by his answer, then Baron Tewks cleared his throat. “Yes, well, what is your stance on—”

And the questions continued, boring and elementary. Sebastien kept half of his brain engaged—it would take intentional suicide at this point not to get good marks when compared with Everly. The other half idly searched the crowd during the intervals when he didn’t need to maintain eye contact with the judges.

What had gotten into the women? The younger ladies, chaperones, and matrons were all sitting primly in their seats near the front. But the more available, scandalous women were in back, sitting up in their chairs flashing bits everywhere.

Men were going down around the room. Parley slipped off his chair, Petrie’s jaw was permanently attached to the floor, Timtree looked amused, but his eyes were focused firmly on one of the widows, who was alternately veiling and then unveiling portions of her body to his view.

Bateman was in either heaven or hell as his eyes skittered around. Sloane was the only one who seemed somewhat composed, and even he was checking the crowds during breaks in his conversations and the interrogators’ questions.

Some of the older men had started to notice. Old, decrepit Compton wasn’t even pretending to ask questions anymore. Sebastien smirked. This was going to be simple.

It wasn’t until the dress portion of the task that he was finally tested.

He was tying a waterfall when he spotted Caroline. She was staring straight at him, smiling as if there was something glorious about him that she had just discovered. Smiling in an almost
gentle
way, as if she
cared
. He nearly ripped the cravat, the tie coming unraveled.

“Tut, Mr. Deville. You were doing well on the first fifteen styles. I had thought you’d have this wrapped up.”

Sebastien narrowed his eyes at the now empty place where she’d been standing, behind a jumble of large ferns. He picked up a new cravat and made the tie, eyes focused where they should be.

When his eyes found her again, she was chatting attentively with Benedict, all prim demeanor on display, unlike the other crazed women, who had either ceased their torment or had become more circumspect when the front rows began searching the audience for what was ailing the men. A dark icicle dripped down his spine as Caroline appeared fully engrossed with his half brother.

The entire game lasted throughout the afternoon and well into the evening. A trial that he placed securely at the feet of a crown of soft gold. He couldn’t rid himself of the image of her smile.

“Supposedly Marjorie Widwell came up with the idea to pull the stunts this afternoon,” Timtree whispered as they were assembling before going into dinner. “I thought Petrie was going to permanently injure himself considering the number of times he fell.”

Marjorie Widwell was a vapid, giggling machine. Easily led and not very bright. There was little doubt to him who had slipped the suggestion in her ear to spread. And spread it had, like wildfire. Nearly a full third of the faster women
had been involved. All in all, it had added to the heavy feeling in the air. Tension, hot and thick, permeated the space, the edges of the glasses, each droplet of wine.

Caroline sat down the table across from him. Just far enough to be safe. He swirled his brandy and thought about how lovely she would be splayed across the table, back arched and legs bent. The brandy caught the edge of a sconce’s light, reflecting warm gold and hot browns.

Her eyes met his for a brief second, her cheeks heated to a luscious rose before she turned away.

The hunt. The anxiety and anticipation. Never had it been this strong. This worthy.

The duke caught his eye, raising a brow. Sebastien swirled his glass again. The duke assuredly knew about the bet, not that it mattered. The duke would think this game the same as the one Sebastien had played with the Plumley chit or one of the other countless twits he had enticed and played with but never bedded. The numbers exaggerated by the gossipmongers, but his attitude unchanged in each instance.

Yet there was something different about this one. Something under his skin that itched and tingled, writhed and begged. To his consternation, Caroline’s likely inability to know how to take care of protecting herself against pregnancy mattered little to his addled urges. He had a fierce, uncontrollable need to possess her completely.

Not just to make her beg for the want of him, but to be the only thing she could think of morning, noon, and night. To be the first thing on her
mind when she pulled her chemise against her bare waist, her stockings against shapely ankles, her necklace against the crest of firm breasts. The last thing she thought about as she stripped off the same.

Something had changed, an underlying impulse. The games ramping up the tension of the hunt. The girl being completely different from any other he had yet met. Country sweet and marriage hard. Strong and totally vulnerable. Easy to take advantage of, susceptible, but with a heart inured to seduction.

The hunt had never tasted sweeter. Never contained the shaky thrill of victory laced with the edges of defeat. Thrilling in the sheer need it invoked.

No longer a need to win a bet or bring a woman to her knees for entertainment. There was a much fiercer feeling behind the absolute want to have her.

Dinner continued on. Conversation flowing as freely as the wine. And Sebastian continued to strip each layer further from her, rose turning to scarlet, breasts rising from nervous lurch to deep heave.

He swirled his brandy and smiled darkly. Little did she realize that two weeks of torment stretched before her. He’d see that hidden smile on her face again soon, whether he had to use everything in his arsenal to bring it forth or not.

He wanted it—that little thrill, that shock, that warm trickle that made him feel nervous and alive.

A current of anticipation rode just beneath the surface of the final evening gathering before the two-week break. She recognized the current now for what it was, the dichotomy of the young set colliding with the mature, whereas before she’d just felt a vague itch, some feeling that was just beyond her reach.

She hadn’t spotted Deville yet. That she was looking for him at all made her nervous.

Sarah was busy chatting with Everly and Lady Tevon. Sarah would probably welcome her interference with Lady Tevon, but Caroline felt sudden kinship with the woman’s chaperonage in the face of a rake like Everly.

She spotted William in the corner, standing alone, watching the threesome, his eyes narrowed.

“That look on your face bodes ill, William,” she said as she stepped next to him.

His face immediately wiped of all emotion. He turned to her. “Caroline. You look lovely this evening.”

“Thank you.” She dipped her head. “I must say I’m looking forward to a break in the competition.”

“Yes, I think many need to relieve themselves of the stress. Head up to Town for a bit of gambling or other pursuits.”

“Are you leaving?”

“Yes, I have to report to the King.”

They both looked to Sarah and Everly again. “I will miss Sarah,” she said. “Though not so much
the other young women during the two-week break.”

“They will have a different form of entertainment in London. It will be good for them to get back out and see things other than this tournament.”

“Yes.” She turned to William. “So, do you fancy Sarah, or do you dislike Everly?”

A forbidding look crossed his face, and then unexpectedly he dropped it. “I would take offense were I not to know your devotion to Lady Sarah.”

“I’m pleased that you are not taking offense.”

He ruefully smiled, then turned back to his observation. “Would it matter which it was? Nothing can stop this competition. Not even a little sabotage.”

She froze.

“Or cheating, whichever.”

Her heart started beating again. Between the shocks and Sebastien Deville, she wondered if the organ would ever return to normal. “Something must be able to stop the competition. You are the King’s representative. Surely you can appeal to him? Sarah is his goddaughter.”

He was already shaking his head before she finished. “And say what exactly? The King thinks she will make a good match. There is a lot of prestige riding on the winner of this tournament. Lady Sarah will be celebrated. It is why Lord Cheevers is so invested in the outcome.”

“Cheevers cares nothing for Sarah.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. He cares at least a little, don’t you think?” He pointed to the earl, who was puffed up watching his daughter and the pro
ceedings. His zeal revealed not a loving look, but a greedy one to her eyes.

“I do not. All I see is greed and the pride of ownership. Nothing softer.”

“Caroline, don’t you think you are being overly harsh?”

“No. I have seen his interaction with Sarah for years, where you have not.”

“I will concede that. But I think he wants only the best for his daughter. He might just go about it in a poor manner. Society is not known for its best efforts in child rearing. But sometimes a parent can see what is best for his child.”

Caroline thought of her parents. Of their loving gestures. Of how she had defied them to run off with Patrick. Fallen prey to his seductive words. How she’d had to have the earl clean up her mess.

She thought of the fathers here, most of whom seemed to care not a whit for their offspring past the possibility for an increase in their reputation.

“So you think marrying the winner will be best for Sarah? Cheevers doesn’t even know who the winner will be.”

William didn’t respond right away. “Time will tell. Come, let’s walk.”

They walked around the edge of the room, making a circuit behind a few of the other pairs—both men and women.

“I wanted to warn you to be careful of Sebastien Deville.”

She pulled away from him and stopped. “I don’t know to what you refer.”

He tilted his head, then tucked her hand into his arm and began walking once more. “I saw you leave with him the other night.”

“I thought you were playing charades?”

“I was. For a bit. But you forget my mission here. I am a watcher, not a participant.”

Caroline looked down at the floor.

“Do not mistake me, Caroline, I do not blame you for leaving on his arm. He is not Sarah’s intended, not yet at any rate, and she does not fancy him any more than the other girls who fancy a streak of danger. I only urge you to use caution when dealing with him.”

“He merely walked me back to the cottage, but I assure you he did not enter.”

He smiled faintly. “No, you have no need to tell me. I am not your counselor. Just your friend, I hope.”

“And I appreciate the advice. Though I think it only smart for anyone to use caution when dealing with a man like Deville.”

He laughed softly. “Yes. Just as in dealing with a panther or a viper. Dangerous and unpredictable, always ready to spring.”

“People can change and grow.” She certainly had, and in fact, she seemed to still be in a state of transition even now. And his sketch hinted at possible self-acknowledgment brimming near the surface. Though she supposed artists were notorious for being unable to see within themselves that which they captured.

“It takes much for a man like Deville to change. Bitter and angry. Believing power and might to
be what he truly wants and needs.” There was something in William’s gaze, some introspection. “I know what it is like. And that will temper eventually. Deville is nothing if not supremely clever. But will it be in time for you?”

She shifted beneath his gaze. “I don’t seek to change anyone.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps you will be the catalyst to change him. But he is in this to win. There is a property on the line that Deville will do anything to possess.”

She froze, remembering the look in Deville’s eyes when he’d said that he knew why she was sketching Roseford.

“One of his mother’s properties. The duke bought it from the lien holder after she died, and before Deville could pay the debt.”

She couldn’t imagine him
losing
the property. The rage he must have possessed—no wonder he hated the duke so.

“Can you envision what would happen should Lord Benedict win the tournament and win the one thing Deville has always wanted?”

No, no she couldn’t. She bit her lip.

“Don’t underestimate this competition, Caroline.”