To Charm a Naughty Countess (22 page)

After two hours in Preston, Caroline thought she had a fair idea of the life of a governess.

It had not begun that way. She had intended to shop with Emily, wanting to buy something that would make her feel beautiful again, even next to the engraving-sharp loveliness of Eleanor Cartwright. A gold necklace, maybe, or some frivolous, silky underthings to lie next to her skin and remind her that she was still a young woman, desired and desiring.

Though the thing she desired most was to listen to Michael’s conversation with Miss Cartwright, to understand how that lady was able to captivate someone Caroline had not thought could be captivated.

Before she and Emily could do more than decide which shop to enter first, though, Caroline recalled her mission in relation to Lord Stratton. The man was as unwelcome as a fly in aspic, and she must remove him just as carefully so as to attract no embarrassing attention. She needed to find the earl, drag him to some sort of hotel, and see that he lodged there until he could be returned to London.

“I’m so sorry, Em,” she sighed. “But it seems our plans to buy half the city in order to make me forget my woes must wait, for there’s a woe I must deal with at once.”

“Do you refer to a woe the shape of a ninepin, with a padded coat, answering to a name that rhymes with
flatten
?”

Caroline couldn’t help but smile. “The very one. I’d love to flatten him for coming here without an invitation. But I’ll try to be a touch more diplomatic and herd him into a hotel instead.”

With a sorry wave, she left her friend in consultation with a milliner whose outrageous prices practically guaranteed a bustling shop.

She found Lord Stratton quickly, for his voice carried over the winding babble of the shoppers and gawkers on Fishergate. Almost as soon as Caroline heard him, she saw him; his beloved amber-headed cane swept the pavement clear of passersby in front of him, as though he wished not to have to share space with anyone.

When he saw Caroline approaching, he executed a neat swivel in the opposite direction.

Caroline made a leap for him and hooked an arm around his flailing cane. “A paltry attempt to escape, Stratton,” she said through gritted teeth. “If
you
pretend to have forgotten our mission in Preston,
I
have not.”

The next two hours were an excruciating exercise in patience and tact, as Caroline was required first, to physically maneuver a person who was both heavier than herself, most recalcitrant, and with few scruples about placing his hands on her person; second, to locate a hotel that his lordship would deign to enter, which necessitated a trudge eastward to the crossroads with a quiet street called Winckley; and third, to procure him accommodation when he refused steadfastly to speak for himself. The cursed man only folded his arms in determined silence before a succession of stiff-necked servants.

In her ear, he murmured, “You can’t make me do anything I don’t wish to. Nor can you make me stop doing something I enjoy.”

“Maybe
I
cannot,” she replied in a voice of false sweetness. “But I can make others do what I wish. And there are plenty of people in this town who are larger than both of us.”

When a strapping manservant passed by in the lobby of the hotel, Caroline pressed a crown into his hand and asked him to assist her
dear
relation into the
best
room available, as she feared he was rather
simple.
“He’s out of his wits from time to time, and I shouldn’t like him to frighten any other guests. Could you ensure he remains in his room?”

A few ruthless waves of her lashes and wiggles of her chest, and the man was happy to oblige.

“Do have a pleasant journey back to London, Stratton,” she said with a cheerful wave as the manservant hoisted the earl up the hotel stairs by an elbow.

He struggled, but in vain. “Not bloody likely.”

“Now, now, you’re speaking to a lady,” grunted the manservant, restraining Stratton from another attempt at escape.

“Not bloody likely,” the earl repeated.

Caroline rolled her eyes. “I shall have your trunks sent here from Callows so that you may have your own things about you until the time of your departure. What’s yours is yours, isn’t it? Just as what’s mine is mine. I remember.”

The look he shot her was pure murder. But in another second, he was dragged around the bend of the stairs.

Caroline stood still for one second, feeling as buoyant as a governess whose least-beloved charge has finally gone away to school. Then she shook off the annoyance that Stratton always roused in her, and she stepped out of the hotel into the silver sunlight of Preston.

She looked left and right, hoping to catch a glimpse of her friend. Emily loved to wear yellow, and as a result, she was easy to pick out in a crowd.

But Caroline’s eyes caught first on a tall, dark-haired figure, folded up on a bench across the street from her. There was nothing unusual about his appearance, but he might as well have been dressed in cloth of gold and an ermine cape, so quickly did she notice him.

Her feet pattered over the pavement toward him.

“Michael,” she called once she drew within a few yards. He was leaning forward, elbows on his thighs, studying his interlaced fingers. She could see the lines of his lean muscles through his breeches.
Ohhh.
She wanted to touch him.

He looked up at the sound of his name. Quickly, she wiped the lust-struck expression from her face.

“I’ve dispatched Stratton,” she said.

His mouth curved. “You can’t mean you’ve killed him.”

She laughed. “Not this time, though I was tempted. I’ve installed him in a hotel under guard and made it quite clear that he was to return to London.”

He nodded, then shifted to settle against the back of the ironwork bench. His arms spanned the top of it.

If she sat next to him, she would be within the span of his embrace. Practically.

Instead, she puttered around, swinging her gaze between the quiet, well-tended gardens and homes of the wealthy, the bustle of Fishergate, and the pole that stretched high and imperious behind Michael.

“Is that for gaslight?” No wonder he sat here. Gaslight would draw him as surely as it would a moth.

“Indeed.” His mouth pressed into a flat line. “I have lately been informed that it is a marvelous innovation, but to be pursued only if one sees an immediate financial return.”

“You sound distressed.”

“I
beg
your pardon. I’m nothing of the sort.” He looked down his nose at her. “I might be slightly fatigued, that is all.”

His fingers began tapping on the stern metal of the bench; Caroline suppressed a smile. His body roiled with energy; it would ever betray his true feelings. “So, what is not distressing you?”

“Everything in the world is not distressing me, because I am not distressed.”

“Excellent. So you find Miss Cartwright acceptable, then. Has she proposed to you yet?”

His back went rigid. “Has she—
what
?”

A gratifying reaction. “I asked you if she had proposed. Marriage, I mean, not some business affair. She knows you want a wife, and she is accustomed to making swift decisions. It’s a habit she learned at her father’s knee, I believe.”

His mouth seemed to be getting flatter still; it allowed a single sentence to escape. “That’s not a habit I expected in a wife.”

“Why not? It’s a trait you share.”

His throat worked. “I am not yet certain whether I shall pursue Miss Cartwright. It may not be desirable that my life’s mate reflect all my own qualities.”

Not
yet
certain.
After everything Caroline had invested. He rejected her aid and her choices, the purpose of this whole house party, as though they were no more significant than a bowl of soup that was not to his taste.

She noticed, detached, the way her skin heated as if slapped, then prickled with icy numbness. The blank before agony. Dimly, she felt surprise that a single phrase could matter so much.

And then feeling came rushing back, her ears roaring with all the noise of the crowds on Fishergate. She knew she must look as wrong as she felt. Michael had tilted his head in that curious way he had.

When she spoke, her voice was carefully quiet. “Your uncertainty surprises me.”

He lifted his brows, imperious as a bust of Caesar. “Why need you concern yourself with my actions?”
After
all, I am not concerned with yours
was the unvoiced second half of that sentence.

Caroline drew herself up to her full height and peered down at him, taking advantage of her standing position to impress her point on his notice. “Because,
Your
Grace
, my own reputation is on the line. On this house party, and on your engagement, depend my place in society as well as yours.”

The bust of Caesar knit his brows. He did not understand.

She bit back a sigh. “You made a fool of me once before, Michael. Yes, it was long ago, but if you choose not to marry now, after I have publicly aided you, the
ton
will remember. Their respect will turn to mockery.”

She hated even to say the words, true as she knew them to be. She had already lived through this once.

Her plan had begun so well: she would triumph over him, and herself, and the polite world. Not in any malicious way, but in a way that would give them all what they needed. Society would get its gossip about the change in the mad duke; Michael would win a rich dowry. And Caroline? She would come to understand him, and the means by which he had so long kept her fascinated.

Now, with every knot she untied, she snarled up two more. She must untie them all, though, and redeem herself. She must once again play matchmaker.

She could not remember when her heart had been in it less. How could it, when it was already spoken for?

Her hands clenched; Michael’s eyes followed their movement. “So you want me to choose a wife to bolster your social consequence.”

She frowned. “No, Michael. I want you to give the selection of a duchess at least as much attention as you give to a magic-lantern slide of a steam locomotive that once ran for a few weeks in London. Because you need to know now, and for the rest of your life, that your whims affect others too. If you ruin your life, you’ll lessen mine too.”

“But you once told me, Caro, that I had not the power to ruin you.” He captured her gaze with those tree-green eyes.

Neither blinked, neither moved, as they recalled the moment of their mutual ruination. Their bodies entwined, the breathless hours in which they both seemed to have found what they longed for. What they had always longed for.

How transient the fulfillment had been, yet how painfully lovely. The thought of it made the fine hairs on Caroline’s arms prickle and rise, as though they sought his touch.

She could have sighed, or cried, or lied to him.

But she didn’t. She stood straight and tall and alone, and she laid herself bare. “It seems you have more power over me than I realized.”

She raised a hand, stared at it as though it belonged to a stranger. Then she took a fraught step closer to him and laid her hand on his chest with a gentle, rolling pressure.

“We’ve tied ourselves together, Michael, for better or worse.”

***

For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.

No, never that. She had made that clear.

Michael folded his arms, as though this would protect his heart. But it only thudded faster, wanting her to notice it. Wanting her to slip her hand under the shirt that lay over his chest, to stroke his skin.

Treacherous body. He should never have allowed it to waken to her touch.

He scooted back on the bench, freeing himself from her, then forced himself to his feet. His legs were disinclined to support him, and he circled behind the bench to lean against the iron-steady support of the gas lamp. Willing his heart to slow,
slow
, but his sullen flesh instead sent the pounding upward to his head.

He squinted, wishing the thump in his head would diminish along with his field of vision. “I am not being flighty in my choice of a wife. To the contrary, I hope to make a marriage that is both sensible and financially advantageous. And of course, I hope it is a happy union too.”

Caroline’s smile looked odd. Rather frozen.

He drew himself away from the support of the gas lamp, stepped closer to her again. The ironwork wall of the bench held them a decorous yard apart. “What is the matter?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” she said through that frozen smile. “You brought up happiness, that is all, and I am merely sharing it. I am happy, Michael, that
you
should regard as worthy of mention such a nebulous, unscientific quality as happiness.”

Michael’s brow furrowed. “You are teasing me.”

“Not at all.” The smile melted away. When she spoke again, her voice was pure vinegar. “But are you quite certain of what you want in a wife? Are you absolutely sure—sure enough to stake your dukedom’s solvency—that Miss Cartwright cannot make you happy? Because you certainly can make her so, simply by hauling out your magic lantern.”

He wondered why her demeanor had changed so swiftly between sweet and sour. But since she assured him she was not, in fact, teasing him, he would give her a serious reply.

He considered before he spoke, letting the distant sun warm his thoughts to life. If the sky seemed endless in Lancashire, somehow the sun seemed farther away. Those who wished for a life of easy gain would be better off matching their mettle against a different part of the country.

“I do not know,” he said, “whether I truly can make Miss Cartwright happy as a wife. But she might not look for happiness. I believe she is most concerned with the expansion of empire.”

Caroline’s brows lifted. “A characteristic that a duke with a taste for innovation ought to admire. Covet, even.”

At the word
covet
, his veins rushed warm. Caroline could not possibly know the depth of covetousness a man could achieve when he pent up his physical urges for thirty-two years, then lavished them one single time on one wondrous woman. “You do not know what I covet.”