What a Duke Dares (5 page)

“Stop trying to skewer me. You’re giving me indigestion.” Despite her bristling hostility, he touched her hand. The contact shivered through him, even as he told himself he offered comfort. “Eat, Pen. It will work out.”

“To your advantage, you think.”

Silence fell, thick with animosity. Such a pity. He and Pen had always got along famously. Until he’d proposed.

“I’m sorry about Peter,” he said quietly. He spoke in English to create some privacy. Around them, the business of the inn continued with maids carrying trays to the taproom.

“So am I.” She didn’t glance up, but her tone was less confrontational. “Thank you for saving me.”

He didn’t want gratitude, although God knew what he did want. “Any man would do the same,” he said uncomfortably.

“
Noblesse oblige
again?”

He didn’t respond. Instead he cut himself more bread. “Peter thought you were in trouble. From what I saw today, he was right.”

“You must have cursed him for involving you. Seeking out an old friend’s wayward sister wasn’t on your agenda. Especially when we didn’t part under the best circumstances.”

Just like Pen to refer so bravely to their last awkward meeting. Cam sipped his wine and decided to be equally frank. “You needn’t have run away. I had no intention of pestering you.”

Color tinged her cheeks and to his relief, she ate a little, if only to avoid his gaze. “I wasn’t running from you. I was running from my mother.”

Ah. He should have guessed. “She bullied you?”

Pen’s laugh was acerbic. “Into the ground. She even told my father to beat me until I agreed to marry you.”

He should have approached Pen before seeking her father’s permission. But in his arrogance, it had never occurred to him that she’d refuse. “Hell, Pen, did he?”

“Of course not.” For one poignant moment, they shared a knowing glance like the friends they’d once been. “Can you see my father raising a hand to me?”

The late Lord Wilmott had been a weak man who had avoided his shrewish wife. “No. He’d scuttle up to London and hide in his club.”

“He went to ground with his latest mistress. Mamma was not pleased.”

“I’m sure.” Just as he was sure that Lady Wilmott would take that displeasure out on her daughter. “So your aunt’s offer arrived at the right moment.”

“I’d always wanted to travel and I was rather dreading my season.”

He wondered why. “You would have been the toast of London.”

“I doubt it.” Her lips twisted in wry denial. “The consensus in the county was that I was too headstrong for my own good. I can’t imagine that the London beaux would have differed.” She paused before he could protest. “I had no idea that I’d wounded your vanity so badly.”

He shrugged, resenting the effort it took to speak lightly. “I daresay the experience was good for my soul.”

Her expression didn’t ease. “I’m sorry, Cam.”

“You’re not sorry you said no.” He should drop this subject. Harping upon her refusal smacked of injured pride.

“It’s a long time ago,” she said softly. That was something new in her. The Pen he’d known would have met that
incendiary remark head on. She bent to her soup again and ate with more relish.

“Will you fight me on returning to England?” he asked once she’d emptied the bowl.

He was pleased that she didn’t look nearly so defeated. He hated to see her proud spirit cowed. “Do you want me to?”

He frowned. “However my high-handedness annoys you, I gave Peter my word that I’d take you back.”

“Peter wasn’t my keeper.”

Although you need one.
“Perhaps not, but he loved you and wanted to see you settled.”

The bitter laugh reminded him of the day he’d proposed. “With a husband and children, no doubt.”

“Is there something wrong with that?” Cam asked sharply.

“It would be wrong for me. I’ll never marry.”

She sounded so certain. And why shouldn’t she? She’d established a life she liked, doing exactly what she liked with whom she liked. He’d almost applaud her audacity. Except that illogically, her impudence made him want to punch something. Preferably one of her damned
cicisbei
.

She cast him an assessing glance. “I’m well past my majority and as I have neither husband nor father to compel me, I’m a free agent.”

He kept his voice even. “I intend to honor my promise.”

The dangerous glint in her black eyes was familiar. “By hitting me over the head and tying me up?”

“If necessary,” he said in a hard voice. Although God knows what he’d do if she refused to cooperate.

Her body sagged and he saw again the grief-stricken girl who had come into the kitchen. “It won’t be necessary.”

A mixture of surprise and pity made him set his glass down so roughly that wine sloshed onto the pine table. “What the hell?”

Faint amusement curved her lips. Those damnably kissable lips. “You’re easier to tease than you once were, Cam.”

“Why, you—”

She pushed back the rickety wooden chair and stood. In spite of her smile, sorrow dulled her eyes. “Peter and I were meeting in Paris to discuss Aunt Isabel’s will. He was to be my legal representative in London. Now I must represent myself. You have my word I’m going home. But if we travel together, people will gossip.”

Even before meeting this disturbingly attractive version of Penelope Thorne, he’d devised a strategy. “We’ll avoid the cities until we reach my yacht at Genoa.”

“Genoa? That means retracing my steps.”

“Be damned if I’m crossing the Alps in February, Pen. We’re heading south.”

“I can head south on my own.”

He was tempted to agree, if only to escape this attraction that had him counting her every breath. Some corner of his mind kept exclaiming in astonishment,
But this is Pen Thorne! With her untidy plaits and her muddy dresses and her skinned knees. How can Pen Thorne throw me into such a lather?
“You’ll run into trouble. You were careless to set off with only that spineless coachman as escort.”

Her eyes turned to black ice. “I don’t owe you excuses or explanations.” She turned to go. “I wish you good evening, Your Grace.”

He surged to his feet. “Wait.”

He caught her arm. When she was younger, he’d touched her a thousand times. Still, her soft warmth shuddered through him. Dear God, this was a catastrophe. He struggled to bring Lady Marianne’s face to mind, but instead of her cool beauty, all he saw was gypsy-dark hair and eyes flashing insolence.

She stopped. “Let me go, Cam.”

“Do I have your word that you won’t disappear into the night?”

She jerked her arm and he released her, if only because touching her threatened his precarious control. “The snow has closed the roads north. I wouldn’t be surprised if the roads south are impassable too.”

“So we’re trapped.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Exactly, Your Grace.” Drawing her cape around her like an ermine cloak, Pen marched out, spine straight and hips swaying with a sinuous impertinence that set his heart cartwheeling.

Damn her.

Chapter Four

Oldhaven House, London, February 1828

H
arry Thorne took one last puff on his cheroot and tossed it with a contemptuous flick into the bushes lining the terrace. He hadn’t enjoyed it, although smoking was the craze for the young bucks he ran with.

Just lately he didn’t enjoy much. The malaise had set in last month after his older brother Peter’s death. The exciting life that a fellow of twenty-three with no responsibilities led in the capital had lost all savor.

Guilt added to his depressed spirits. Hell, if he’d known the truth about Peter’s troubles, he’d have rushed to his brother’s side. But Peter had kept his difficulties to himself. Still, it was a damned bitter pill to swallow that his brother had breathed his last, alone in a foreign country, and Harry hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye.

Harry wandered away from the ballroom into the dark garden. The violins scratching out the latest waltz faded until the music was a whisper.

Somewhere out here Lady Vera Standish waited, finally ready, if he read the signals, to surrender her plump prettiness. She’d challenged him to find her. After months of dogged pursuit, he damn well hoped she wasn’t trying too hard to hide.

Except even the prospect of exploring Lady Vera’s much admired, and much caressed charms didn’t dispel his megrims. He reached the garden wall, well away from the house. When he heard a rustle, he turned, struggling to muster a flicker of excitement.

Then a sound he didn’t expect. A sniff and a muffled sob.

Not Lady Vera.

He retreated to grant some privacy to whoever huddled in the bushes.

Another sniff. Another choked sob.

He took a couple of steps down the white gravel path. If someone cried out here alone, it was none of his damned business. If he delayed, Vera Standish would turn to some other swain. She wasn’t noted for her patience.

His shoe scraped across a rock. Silence descended. Whoever was hiding now knew that she wasn’t alone.

Harry recognized that he was incapable of leaving someone to suffer. As a rake and roué, he was a rank failure. With a sigh, he turned toward the holly-smothered alcove. As he battled through the prickly greenery, he couldn’t help thinking of the prince struggling through thorns toward Sleeping Beauty.

“Please don’t come any closer,” a soft, broken voice whispered from mere feet away.

“Too late,” he muttered, bursting through the hedge into an enclosed hollow. His eyes had adjusted and he easily made out the girl in a light-colored gown cowering against the wooden seat.

“Go away.” Although he couldn’t see her face, she sounded very young. Her lace handkerchief twisted in her hands.

“Are you all right?” He ventured closer and she pressed back.

“Perfectly.”

There. He’d asked. She was fine. He could now find Lady Vera. “Why are you crying?”

“I’m not crying.” Her quaking voice proclaimed her a liar.

“You sound like you are.”

“It’s a bad cold,” she said stiffly.

“You shouldn’t be sitting outside, then.”

“And you shouldn’t be talking to strange women without an introduction.”

The show of spirit intrigued him. He could make out very little apart from her slenderness and the constant tugging at the handkerchief.

“Are you?”

“Am I what?” she asked with a hint of snap.

He hid a smile. “Strange.”

She stood. The full moon chose that moment to emerge from behind a cloud, granting his first glimpse of his damsel in distress.

He felt like someone had punched him in the gut.

How in hell had he missed her before this? Had he been so fixated on the pinchbeck of Vera Standish when somewhere in that ballroom waited pure gold?

“I’m not strange.” She surveyed him with wide eyes in a delicate face under a pile of thick golden hair. “I’m beginning to think you might be.”

His damsel was breathtakingly lovely. “Why the devil are you sitting out here all alone?” he asked roughly. “You don’t know who might come upon you.”

Tentative mischief lit her expression. He’d been right to suspect liveliness beneath her distress. “Well, you did.”

He should say something rakish. But when he looked at her, his heart stopped. She was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. Who on earth was she? Damn it, he’d been out in society since leaving university and he had a reputation as a dog with the ladies. But this girl stole his ability to do more than mumble and act the looby. He managed a smile, quite a feat when his heart performed somersaults in his chest. “I’m generally accounted quite benign.”

She stared at him as if she’d never seen a man. “I should go.”

He chanced a step nearer and felt a surge of triumph when she didn’t retreat, although even in the uncertain light, he saw her wariness. Not quite as innocent as all that, apparently. “You don’t want to go back into the ballroom with red eyes.”

“Nobody would notice.”

His laugh was short. “This is your first season, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Then take advice from someone older and wiser—the old tabbies notice everything. And they pass it on. If you don’t want the world to know that you’ve been crying, you’ll enter that room utterly composed.”

Her lush lips turned down. “I don’t like London.”

“You will.”

Daringly he reached for one of her gloved hands. She started, but even through two layers of fabric, he felt her warmth. The urge to strip away both gloves and test the softness of her skin beat like a war drum in his head. But one false move and she’d scarper for the ballroom, red eyes or not.

“I’m not so green that I don’t know a stranger shouldn’t hold a lady’s hand,” she said drily.

“Yes, remiss of you not to tell me your name.”

To his surprise, she laughed. He was glad to see her regain her cheerfulness. “It’s better that you don’t know who I am.”

“Won’t you tell me why you’re crying?”

She raised shining eyes to his and he suffered another blow from an invisible assailant. “You’ve just told me I can’t trust anyone.”

Hoist by his own petard. “You can trust me.”