To Tempt a Saint (4 page)
Authors: Kate Moore
“Appointment with whom?”
“With Mr. Evershot, of course.” Cleo could see him assessing her, a cool, dispassionate judgment that weighed her purse and found it wanting. She had to stay on the attack. She set the brimming cup on the table, opposite her own position.
“Since we are being frank, Miss Spencer, if that is your name, you appear to be a stranger to banks and their contents.”
She was right about one thing. He had an instinct to go for the throat. She stirred a bit of cream into her own tea. “You judge by appearances, do you? Now, Miss Finsbury, she might have been taken in at first by your splendid tailoring, but when push came to shove, she saw through you perfectly. You want the use of her fortune for some purpose of your own.”
“I admitted as much. Should I have lied and declared passionate love?”
“Of course not, but perhaps you should have taken the time to become acquainted with her. She seems to be of a more romantic disposition than you anticipated. Did you observe what she was wearing or compliment her on it?”
He made a strangled reply and took a seat opposite her.
“Did you take her hand? Drop your voice to a husky whisper?” Cleo shook her head. “You don’t have a sister, do you?”
“If you think my understanding of the ‘female mind’ might be improved by a sister, you are way off the mark. Believe me, I have ample experience of the female . . . mind.” He leaned forward, and his dark, bold hands closed around the cup. It was her first glimpse of those hands, corded, lean, and strikingly male in contrast to the pale cup nested in the curve of his palms.
Cleo blinked. She had the most disturbing image of herself standing naked before him.
“Females may fancy themselves in love as much as they like, but I have yet to see one forget her pocketbook in the process.”
“And so, you chose a bank office to declare yourself ?” She thought her voice sounded remarkably calm.
His glance shifted away. His profile was handsome in a stern, carved stone sort of way. “It was difficult to arrange to see the lady.”
“Were you thinking that you could draw on the bank directly for your beloved’s fortune once she swooned at your feet?”
“My proposal was honest.”
“Admirable, I am sure, but clearly Miss Finsbury was not moved by your devotion to her thirty thousand pounds.” Cleo took a fortifying sip of the heavenly tea.
He set his cup down without tasting his. “She would have what most women want from marriage.”
Cleo looked at him, at the uncompromising cut of his jaw and the full curve of his lower lip. The stretch of his fine trouser fabric outlined one muscular thigh. He clearly didn’t understand a woman’s reasons for marrying a man like himself. “Yet here you are, not a quarter of an hour later without your potential betrothed or her fat dowry. May I tell you how it sounded to me?”
Their gazes crossed and held, and Cleo recalled an errant lesson of childhood,
in fl int is fi re
. An awkward realization hit her. He was way ahead of her. He had
wanted
Miss Finsbury to refuse him. He had encouraged her rejection. Whatever his reason for courting her in the first place, he had changed his mind.
in fl int is fi re
. An awkward realization hit her. He was way ahead of her. He had
wanted
Miss Finsbury to refuse him. He had encouraged her rejection. Whatever his reason for courting her in the first place, he had changed his mind.
Cleo wondered when he had realized he could not go through with it. She gave him credit for bearing all the humiliation of the moment and sparing that beribboned twit her share.
“Why hesitate now?” He made an offhand gesture and leaned back in his chair.
Cleo gave up on her tea and stood.
Oh, she could play his game. She would be glad to catalog his follies for him.
“You began by telling her that her fortune was her great attraction. You took no notice of her person when she had troubled to dress with such care for you. All those bows took time to arrange. Next you pointed out that she is getting rather long in the tooth.”
Oh, she could play his game. She would be glad to catalog his follies for him.
“You began by telling her that her fortune was her great attraction. You took no notice of her person when she had troubled to dress with such care for you. All those bows took time to arrange. Next you pointed out that she is getting rather long in the tooth.”
She began to pace, warming to her subject. “Then you offered her things her papa already provides—a comfortable home and freedom. Furthermore, in case she missed your first mention of her fortune, you then suggested that while you were busy spending her money, she might occupy herself with her socially inferior connections and such children as will magically appear.” She came to halt opposite him. That hard slate gaze was fixed on her, not in anger now, but in amusement. “Even turnips require planting, you know.”
“You are outrageous. You are what, twenty? How is it that no one has strangled you?”
Cleo sat down again. She felt inexplicably deflated. “I am frank, I admit, but your next proposal shall undoubtedly go the better for my advice, and since you seem to have a pressing need for someone’s dowry, I take it you will propose again.”
“Perhaps you can direct me to a more accommodating heiress.” It was mockery she saw in his cool, gray gaze. He could enjoy the game, sitting there in his fine tailoring while the mud dried on her ragged hem.
Something wild flashed in her brain. Suppose he transferred his proposal to her? She felt like Charlie’s hero, Ben Franklin, with his kite, trying to catch lightning with a key. She took hold of the teacup again, but the lovely liquid had cooled, and the idea in her head was unstoppable. “Well,” she suggested, “you could propose to me. Unlike Miss Finsbury I am of a practical turn of mind.”
Again he made a swift, hard-eyed assessment of her person that started that little tremor going in her belly. He leaned down and plucked a piece of straw from the carpet, laying it on the silver tea tray. Cleo felt instant heat flash in her cheeks. “And your dowry, Miss Spencer? What is the going rate for black silk frogging in the secondhand shops?”
She clasped her hands together in her lap and willed herself not to answer. He had spotted her one remaining vanity and her desperate economy. She should let it pass. No one knew the size of her fortune except her trustees.
Easy for him to tease about money.
Whatever need he had for Miss Finsbury’s dowry, he felt no pinch in his purse for daily life. But oh, he tempted her. The chance of getting access to her own money dangled there like a ripe plum to be snatched.
Whatever need he had for Miss Finsbury’s dowry, he felt no pinch in his purse for daily life. But oh, he tempted her. The chance of getting access to her own money dangled there like a ripe plum to be snatched.
When she lifted her gaze, he was watching her closely. A reckless laugh bubbled up inside her. “My dowry? Why, I have seventy-five thousand pounds in this very bank.”
She caught the flash of surprise in those cool eyes, immediately subdued. Then his glance returned to the piece of straw, and the curl of his fine mouth said he did not believe her.
The door opened, and Mr. Evershot entered, chuckling and rubbing his hands together with a banker’s gleam in his eye. Thin gray strands of hair barely concealed his pink scalp. He looked straight at Cleo’s companion. “Your business is concluded? Everything satisfactory?”
“Thanks to this lady.” Sir Baritone rose, a slow unfolding of his tall person. “Apparently, Evershot, you should beg her pardon. She claims she has an appointment with you.”
“Miss Spencer? An appointment today?” Evershot frowned at Cleo. “Jones! I beg your pardon.”
“His pardon!” Cleo had the satisfaction of seeing Jones register both Evershot’s recognition and the truth of her name.
Evershot turned back to Jones. “You’ve not been inconvenienced, I trust?”
Cleo fumed. She had never seen Evershot grovel before. How lowering that a
Mr. Jones
mattered as a client while she did not. “Mr. Evershot, Mr. Jones has been kind enough to keep me company while you were delayed. He was just leaving.”
Mr. Jones
mattered as a client while she did not. “Mr. Evershot, Mr. Jones has been kind enough to keep me company while you were delayed. He was just leaving.”
Jones’s stern mouth quirked up in a hint of a smile. “Evershot, Miss Spencer, good day.”
Evershot’s bow nearly scraped the floor. He would be picking carpet threads out of his linen all night. Cleo turned back to the tea. At least the wretched piece of straw was gone, lost in the carpet pattern somewhere.
“Clearly Mr. Jones knows the secret of receiving good service here.”
“Not
Mr.
Jones,
Sir
Alexander Jones, the man who saved the prince’s life.”
Mr.
Jones,
Sir
Alexander Jones, the man who saved the prince’s life.”
Chapter Two
C
LEO returned to Fernhill Farm in the dark. She trudged up the boggy lane trying not to let disappointment slow her steps, and trying not to land in the muck. Her encounter with Sir Alexander Jones had been a disaster. In Evershot’s view she had come between the bank and one of its
important
clients.
LEO returned to Fernhill Farm in the dark. She trudged up the boggy lane trying not to let disappointment slow her steps, and trying not to land in the muck. Her encounter with Sir Alexander Jones had been a disaster. In Evershot’s view she had come between the bank and one of its
important
clients.
Evershot refused to help her without consulting her other trustee, Uncle March, and that was the very thing Cleo must avoid. If she could not find a way to get Charlie off to school, March would take him away from her. She didn’t deserve that. She was sure that she had long ago atoned for any vanity or folly she had committed in those three dizzying years of her girlhood when she had believed herself untouchable by misfortune.
Her mother’s death in childbirth had faded to a gentle sorrow by the time Cleo made her come-out. By then she had been so used to looking out for herself and Charlie with help from their childhood nurse, Miss Hester Britt, that she had not imagined needing any particular parental guidance in London. She had not imagined that her father would fall down a flight of stairs at a brothel and break his neck. She had not imagined that he had signed away his children’s care to a half brother more interested in their money than their welfare. Nor had she imagined the power of a piece of paper to limit her freedom and her brother’s.
What if Sir Alexander Jones had taken her up on her outlandish proposal and simply transferred his plans to her? Would she have said yes? She shivered at the thought. Once again she had to reflect on her great fall. No use recalling those seasons full of proposals from charming, half-sincere young men to whom she had said “no,” believing eligible suitors would always be as plentiful as chestnuts in the fall.
If she had accepted one of those young men, however flawed her marriage might have been, she and her fortune would never have been under her uncle’s control. And she had to admit that any of them would have been better than the husband Uncle March had chosen for her.
But those suitors were gone. Today she had all but proposed marriage to a hard-eyed stranger about whom she knew nothing except that he was willing to marry a complete ninny for money. Jones had had an unfortunate effect on her. She could only explain it as desperation for money. It was utter folly to reveal the amount of her fortune to a stranger. She was lucky Evershot had interrupted their conversation. With Jones out of the room, Cleo had recovered her sanity. She didn’t think Franklin had persisted in his dangerous kite experiments, either, or he would have been burned to a cinder.
Sir Alexander Jones had obviously come to his senses as well about Miss Finsbury, so he was unlikely to make another hasty proposal, especially to a ragged girl with straw on her skirts.
At the turning in the lane, she could see a light coming from the barn, which meant that Charlie was at his chores. Another few steps and Charlie’s setter Bess raced to greet Cleo with a cheerful bark and much tail wagging. Cleo stopped to rub the silky head.
Then Charlie appeared with a pail of milk. Cleo’s empty stomach made a desperate rumble. She watched her brother lurch toward her with the heavy bucket, making a thin shadow in the light from the barn door.
“What kept you? I worried some.”
“Not too much, I hope. I’ve brought you a present, a real treasure.” Cleo showed him the thin roll of draftsman’s paper she had carefully protected on the stage.
“And didn’t eat, I suppose?”
“I wasn’t hungry.”
“Liar.”
“Till now, of course.” She peeked into the pail. “Bless Agnes for giving us all that lovely milk. What shall we do with it?” She slipped her arm into Charlie’s free one and tugged him toward the kitchen, trying not to notice that he’d done his chores in his one good shirt and pair of breeches.
“Well, if we had some eggs and flour and sugar and cinnamon, we could have a pudding.”
“And if we had some potatoes?”
“We could boil and mash them.” He said it dreamily. Potatoes were the main course of the imaginary feasts with which they planned to celebrate their return to Woford Abbey, now leased to a tenant. They would bake them with cream, brown them in roast drippings, and whip them into buttery mounds.
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