The Bride Price (3 page)

She picked up the teapot again, not giving away the fact that she was only half joking. Sarah was her sister in everything but the eyes of the world. If the competition turned out to be disastrous, despite the ill-suited nature they both possessed for running away, and their limited funds, Caroline would attempt to smuggle her out of the country.

“Well, until we can come up with the perfect destination, let’s see what we can do about this competition. Illegitimate children and latter-born sons, hmmm…”

“Hungry, to the last.”

“Do you know any of them?”

“A few. But they are mostly rogues and rakes and men not interested in wallflowers. There are fifteen of them.” She rattled off a few names that Caroline recognized from notes, the London sheets, and the earl, but few that she could identify by face, never having had a season herself.

“In a few days most of them will be here to look over the documents.” Sarah’s voice grew weary. “Lady Tevon has been trying to drum excitement into me. She would be overjoyed to share all she knows—I know Father has told her everything. She sleeps in his room, though they think I don’t know.” Caroline blinked, momentarily sidetracked by Sarah’s glib announcement of the earl’s new mistress. “I can have you over for tea, and you can ask during the visit.”

“Excellent.”

She kept up a steady chatter designed to keep Sarah laughing, all the while plotting which part of the competition she planned to destroy first.

Dear Reader, shadowy appeals from every corner are turning into intriguing tidbits. Our sources tell us that many of society’s sons—the favorite and the notorious—are set to compete in a tournament. Among them are Marcus Sloane, the natural son of the Marquess of Sloanestone, and Sebastien Deville, the natural son of the Duke of Grandien. As you are undoubtedly aware from the social on-dits, Deville is best known for his unpredictability and his exploits with the women in Town…

C
aroline tiredly dropped her papers onto a curved stone bench in the front garden of the vacant, but charming, Roseford Grange. She’d completed a pencil sketch of the grounds and now needed to illustrate the house proper on the page.

The words of the earl and Sarah’s new chaperone played through her mind. She had exhausted most of her ire during the carriage ride, but the product remained.

Lady Sarah’s marriage to the tournament winner
will be the event of the season. Married to the new viscount. A man demonstrating strength in all areas and supported by the most powerful men in England. Think of your father’s pride
,
Lady Sarah!

With great difficulty Caroline had restrained herself from giving Lady Tevon a box on the ears for dangling the earl’s regard before Sarah like a carrot on a stick. Repeated over and over, the effect had been brutal.

“Your father wants to see you married well. His
affection
for you would be untold. The sheer amount of
pride
he would have in you—unfathomable.” Caroline mimicked the speech, the authoritarian power that Lady Tevon dripped with every new word. Her anger with the earl grew ever larger.

She gave a vicious little tug of her black chalk over the paper. Undoubtedly the winner of this redoubtable tournament would make a powerful match—Lady Tevon was correct.

That didn’t mean that the contestants themselves would be wonderful. Men in power, or seeking it, rarely were. And several of the men were widely known as out-and-out rakes. Men who seduced women into believing they were special. Men who moved on as soon as the next beautiful or powerful thing crossed their paths. Men like—

She scratched out another line along with the thought, making sure the placement of the line was perfect, with no excess marks or flavor.

She critically examined the Grange, focusing on her task instead of memories best left forgotten. The main house was a lovely structure with brown peaks and sloping roofs. Large windows
and thoughtful architecture. Warm and inviting, yet wild and free. Long-stemmed flowers and curling ivy twined around it, encompassing it in long green arms and colorful fingers.

If she were an artist, it would be a heavenly sight to paint. A sight in and of itself that would perhaps encourage one to become an artist. This was the type of home in which she’d like to see Sarah reside. She had always thought her friend more at ease in her own wild cottage garden than in the confines of the strict manor with its rigid layout and oppressive stones.

The last thing Sarah needed was a domineering or roguish man to inhabit it with her.

“You are trespassing on private property,” a deep, smooth voice stated. “If you would kindly be on your way.”

She whipped around to see a well-dressed,
very
handsome man leaning casually against a garden pillar no more than five paces away. But for the look in his eyes, a jaded prince.

The hum of a befuddled cricket echoed her feelings. “Trespassing?” she asked, unnerved by his presence.

He cocked a brow. “The act of walking onto property that is forbidden to you.”

“No, I mean, I believe you are mistaken, sir. I’m not trespassing—”

“Oh? Just marking the time in the shade then?”

Irritated, she turned more fully toward him. “No. I’m not a trespasser. I have permission to be on the property.”

“Permission from the duke?” He looked down a perfectly formed nose. “Consider him a trespasser as well.”

“The duke?” Did he mean the Duke of Grandien? An owner could hardly trespass on his own estate. Momentarily confused, she examined the man more fully. He wasn’t just fashionably dressed, he was a model of fashion, but for the languid way he stood in his clothes. The strange feeling that he would mock her were she to comment on his clothing, as if he was having a laugh at someone else’s expense by wearing it so well, settled upon her.

“The highest rank of nobility,” he said unhelpfully.

She bristled. “I know what a duke is.”

His brow rose again and his gaze washed over her. “Do you?”

She couldn’t restrain the flush. She was hardly dressed in her best outfit, not having expected to run into anyone but skeleton staff on the temporarily abandoned estate, and she automatically knew that even her best wouldn’t be on par with this man’s worst. “Yes, even scullery maids know what a duke is.”

“Is that how the doddering old man is dressing his scullers these days?” He whistled. “A sad state of affairs.”

“What a horrible—” She stopped and took a breath. “I don’t even know how to begin responding to your rude comments. I’m here on the orders of the earl. I won’t be but an hour, then you will be well rid of me.” She added under her breath, “And I will be happy for it now.”

“The earl?” His eyes narrowed.

“Earl Cheevers.”

He gave a short laugh, unpleasant in nature. “The earl holds no sway here. Meadowbrook is an hour’s ride that way.” He pointed. “Now scurry off; I’m sure there is work to be done in the earl’s
magnificent
kitchens.”

What a horrible man. Any male beauty was dwarfed by his unpleasant nature. “I’m sorry for whatever the earl has done to rile you so, but I will just be an hour more.”

“No. Whatever the earl wants with Roseford”—he made a striking motion with his hand, a sinister smile on his face—“I will take great pleasure in thwarting.”

“He but needs a drawing for a tournament that is…” She trailed off at the look of utter rage that passed over the man’s face before his features settled back into cold lines.

“I know what the damn drawing is for.”

“Oh.” She didn’t know what else to say. Part of her thought she should commit the building and grounds to memory right now and run back to the safety of the carriage and driver. The other part was screaming for her not to turn her back on the man in front of her. He didn’t exactly seem the model of stability.

She had heard somewhere that the most beautiful members of society, of which his clothes and face clearly claimed him a part, were some of the most unstable. Too much inbreeding.

“Pardon me?” The look on the man’s face hinted he was two steps from throttling her where she stood.

Oh dear. The last bit had slipped right out.

A dozen excuses and apologies jostled through her brain as death stared her in the face. She was trying to formulate an appropriate response when his forbidding look changed suddenly into one full of dark humor, making him even more attractive. Like a puckish cupid on an evil mission.

“No, no, that is delicious actually.” His lips curved into an appealing smile that caused alarming warmth to curl in her belly. “Terrible inbreeding is exactly what is wrong with me. I believe you are too right in that assessment, Miss—?”

She didn’t answer, still speechless.

“Shall I just call you Miss Sculler, then?” He pushed away from the pillar and approached her, dropping into the seat beside her and stretching long legs. If she were a small animal of prey she’d be in deep, deep trouble at the moment.

Rich brown hair hung slightly too long; a clump fell into shaded eyes, framing arrogant, sharp features. His body held the lithe type of grace found in the best predators as he leaned negligently against the back of the bench, exuding a feeling of danger mixed with ease.

“I blame the male side, of course. Do you think if we mated, the children would be better off?”

“No,” she choked out.

“Pity. I’ll have to find some other woman of solid stock to stop the flow of beauty and insanity.” He put one hand to his chest and one to his head in a pose that would have made Kean envious. “My curse.”

She could feel her mouth part, but there was
little to be done about her gawking. If she said what she was thinking, all those years of restraint would be for naught.

He turned and inspected her from the toes of her slippers to the tip of her bonnet. “Now that I fully see you, hidden underneath that hideous thing, I can see that our mating wouldn’t have helped the curse anyway.”

Before she could determine his meaning, he was stretching out, his body resting like velvet over the stone.

“The earl sent you all the way over here to sketch tiny Roseford Grange for his tournament.” He tapped his fingers together. “There is so much irony in this whole scenario to appreciate.”

She tried to edge away without his noticing, but he pinned her with an amused gaze.

“You seemed much more animated before, Miss Sculler. Come now, the sketch.” He made a motion with his hand. “I’m anxious to see your work.”

The man was daft. Completely and utterly daft. He used her inattention to lean over and peer at her paper.

“I don’t know whether to be thrilled that you plan to serve this to Cheevers, or appalled at Roseford being so visually mauled.” He looked up through long lashes, one lock of hair falling into his eye. “Would you rather draw the butterflies? Your mouth is so agape as to catch at least one.”

A butterfly flitted between them, near enough for either to touch. He traced the air around it.

“Something that seems simply pretty to most, yet underneath shows a complicated bit of art
istry.” The butterfly landed, slowly flapped its wings twice, then lifted off. The man’s head cocked to the side, watching her. “At least then your sketch would be adequately pretty to most, and would cover the damning coldness.”

She couldn’t resist the response that sprang to her lips. “I beg your pardon?”

“Excellent. Begging this early in our acquaintance.” Another horribly appealing smile curved perfect lips as he leaned back once more, somehow closer to her than before. “You are pardoned.”

Her grip on the paper slackened along with her jaw. “You terrible man.” She wasn’t sure she had ever met anyone so forward. Not even Patrick had been this silver-tongued.

He cocked a brow, surveying her with hot eyes, and relaxed further into his negligent pose.

Far from the maniac she had first assumed,
this
was the type of rake who carefully cultivated his projected image under a veneer of disrepute. The type of man who fulfilled every fantasy and then left women crying and broken in his wake.

Now that he wasn’t using his forbidding-lord look on her, he practically
oozed
illicit desire and temptation, like a fresh summer strawberry coated in sugar and wickedness. Or a juicy pomegranate seed that would send a woman straight to Hades.

She was quite familiar with his type, both his types, though she’d never been quite so stunned by either of them before.

“You are quite beautiful up close, under that dreadful bonnet.” His tone was musing as he tapped a finger against the stone of the bench.
“I wasn’t expecting that. A pleasant surprise, of course, though you seem to be something of an ice princess in need of thawing, if that drawing is any indication. Then again, Cheevers likes his women stern and full-bodied.”

His words blurred together in a sort of red film of outrage, as she watched the movements of his hands, his hair, his facial expressions.

She would not respond.

He smiled—lips curving in a manner that said he knew exactly what she was thinking.

She would not respond.

A rustle alerted her too late. She tried to grab for her paper as he snatched it. A second later he had balled it up and tossed it over his shoulder. It sailed into twining plants, which seemed to gulp and swallow as the ball disappeared into depths of green.

Ire returned to her tongue like an old friend. “That was thirty minutes’ worth of work you destroyed, you inbred goat.”

He raised an elegant brow. “Thirty minutes? For that? You should thank your inbred pasture animals then. Lifeless piece, it was.”

“Thank you?” she sputtered. “I should thank you because I’ve lost thirty minutes of work that you deem
lifeless
?”

He cocked that same brow, the elegance of his bearing at odds with the look in his eyes—far too dark and savage for a face so young. He couldn’t be more than thirty. “What are you afraid of?”

Everything in her bristled. “I’m afraid of doing permanent damage to the underside of a bray
ing animal with horns,” she said with a relish she hadn’t enjoyed in years. Unease slithered through her at the depth of the feeling. She took a deep breath, pulling forth the calm facade she had forced herself to perfect. “What I meant to say—”

He moved forward and touched her face with expensively gloved fingers. Her mouth snapped shut at his sheer nerve and proximity as supple leather slid over her skin. Eyes the oddest shade of blue examined her critically. Bluish-green, like an exotic orchid. She shook her head to stop their mesmerizing effect and pulled her cheek from his touch.

“Classic beauty, fine features, but afraid of her own passion,” he said, showing himself even more of an ass by talking to himself, cataloging her assets as if she were a broodmare. “How disappointing. And tantalizing, of course. I hadn’t realized scullery maids could be so intriguing.”

She didn’t know which segment of his assessment insulted her more. She swallowed her immediate reply, refusing to play his game.

Full lips pulled across straight white teeth. “And here I was hoping that you’d beg me so prettily once again.”

She pulled an escaped bit of hair back under her bonnet, and kept her lips pressed tightly together.

“Is that spirit you are vainly trying to suppress?” His eyes were heavy—lazy and satisfied. “I don’t know whether to be pleased at the immediate progress or irritated that my new game has been cut short.”

“I seriously doubt you can handle my unsuppressed spirit,” she said, a little viciously, irritated and unnerved by the whole encounter. The hair escaped again with her head shake.

“I seriously doubt that,” he mocked. His head cocked to the side, and one lock of rich brown hair slid farther over his eye—unlike hers, though, she was sure the gesture was calculated. Hair too long, brilliant eyes too full of shadows. “You are trying much too hard to be restrained. It’s in your every line, from your severe hair knot tucked in that awful bonnet that cannot quite keep that one piece of hair in place, to the abbey-worthy scullery dress that barely fits you. And then there is your abominable drawing. The less said about that, the better.”