What Price Love? (37 page)

Last night…he'd held her, and loved her, gently cradled her until she'd recovered enough to stand, then he'd set her bodice to rights, smoothed her skirts down, and escorted her back to the ballroom.

No one, it seemed, had missed them. She'd had no idea how much time had elapsed, but not one
grande dame
directed so much as a cocked eyebrow their way. She wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but she was twenty-four, an age by which society expected ladies of her station to wed.

And within the ton, dalliance was an accepted part of the rituals leading to the altar.

Frowning, she drummed her fingers on the comforter. She would need to bear that in mind—that help in avoiding Dillon would likely not be all that forthcoming. She couldn't—patently could not—rely on society to erect hurdles in his path.

Of course, now her biggest problem was that she was no longer sure of his path. After last night…

They'd parted in Lady Trenton's front hall; she'd uttered not one word of warning or reproach—either would have been hypocritical, and given his temper where she was concerned, so much wasted breath.

She hadn't missed the honesty—the raw reality—of his desire for her. Or hers for him. However, he'd said not one word about marriage.

So what was his direction now?

All he'd said was that he would see her today.

With a humph, she threw back the covers and rose. Briskly washing, then dressing, she glanced at the clock. Eleven o'clock. She stopped. Stared.
Eleven?

She glanced at the window, paused to listen to the noises about the house. “Damn!” She'd slept in.

Grumbling, she rushed through her toilette.

Her immediate goal where Dillon was concerned seemed obvious enough. Until she knew what he was about, she would do well to avoid him, or at least avoid situations in which they would be alone.

Despite the forces arrayed against her, she was her own woman; she remained determined to dictate her own life. She was not going to marry any man who didn't love her. Regardless of their beliefs, the ton would simply have to swallow that fact.

Primed for battle, she went downstairs, wondering a little at the silence. She turned into the dining parlor—and saw Dillon seated at the table.

Halting, she stared. She hadn't expected any action before breakfast!

His chair was pushed back from the table, a coffee cup by his elbow. Lowering the news sheet he'd been perusing, he smiled. “Good morning.” His gaze swept over her mint green gown. His smile deepened. “I trust you slept well.”

She waited until his gaze returned to her face to blandly state, “I did, thank you. What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.” He waved her to the sideboard.

Reluctant though she was to take her eyes from him, she went. “Where are the others?”

“They left fifteen minutes ago in Flick's barouche. I have my curricle—we're to meet them in the park.”

She glanced at him; his attention had returned to the news sheet. The ham smelled wonderful; she helped herself to two slices, then returned to the table and sat opposite him. The butler appeared with a fresh pot of tea and a rack of warm toast; she thanked him, and settled to eat.

Adult males, she knew, rarely chatted over the breakfast cups; content enough with Dillon's silence, she applied herself to assuaging an appetite in large part due to him.

The instant she lifted her napkin to her lips, he folded the news sheet and set it aside. “I'll check on my horses. Come out when you're ready.”

She inclined her head and rose as he did. It felt strange, walking out to the hall side by side, without ceremony parting at the foot of the stairs…as she reached her bedchamber, she realized what she meant by “strange.” Domesticated. As if he and she…

Frowning, she opened the door and went in to don her bonnet and pelisse.

She was still frowning inwardly when she went down the front
steps, ready to pounce on any uncalled-for, too-possessive action he might think to make. Instead, while their private interactions—his comments, her replies as he tooled them through the streets of Mayfair—remained at a level that attested to their intimacy, his outward actions were impossible to fault. He behaved with unwavering propriety, as a gentleman should to an unmarried lady of his class.

She was still wondering what he was up to—not just what his direction was but what fiendishly arrogant steps he might take to steer her down it—when he guided his pair through the gates of the park. They bowled along under the trees, but then the Avenue, lined with the carriages of the fashionable, hove into sight, and he had to check his team.

They were the same beautiful blacks she'd admired in Newmarket; Dillon held them to a slow trot as they tacked between the stationary carriages and the smaller curricles and phaetons that passed up and down the crowded stretch.

“Flick's carriage is royal blue. See if you can spot it.”

She looked around. When other ladies saw her, and smiled and nodded, she responded in kind. They seemed to be attracting a significant amount of attention, but then it was her, him, and his horses all together. She glanced at him, took in his many-caped greatcoat hanging open over a coat of black superfine, a gold-and-black-striped waistcoat and tight buckskin breeches that disappeared into glossy Hessians, and had to admit, all together, they must present quite a sight. Something akin to an illustration in the
Ladies Journal
—“
fashionable lady and gentleman driving in the park.
”

“What's so amusing?”

His words brought her back to the moment, to the realization she'd been smiling to herself. “Just…” He glanced at her; she met his eyes, mentally shrugged. “Just the picture we must make.” Looking ahead, she nodded at the ladies in the carriages before them. “We're creating quite a stir.”

Dillon merely inclined his head; inwardly, he grinned. They were creating a stir for a more potent reason than their glamorous appearance. He didn't, however, feel any great need to explain that, not yet.

Indeed, if ever. From the point of attaining his goal, there were some things it might be better she never learned.

He saw a flash of blue ahead. “There they are—to the left.”

The space beside Flick's carriage was just wide enough for him to ease his curricle into. He'd borrowed one of Demon's London grooms as a tiger; consigning the blacks to his care, he rounded the curricle and handed Pris down.

Eugenia and Flick were settled in the carriage. As he and Pris drew near, Rus assisted Adelaide to the lawn.

As soon as Pris had greeted Eugenia and Flick, Adelaide, all but bubbling with exuberance, said, “We've been waiting to stroll the lawns.”

Pris had to smile at her eagerness. “Yes, of course. Shall we?”

She looked at the carriage, received Eugenia's approving nod, then turned—and found Dillon waiting to offer his arm. She hesitated for only an instant before laying her hand on his sleeve. It was only a walk in the park, after all.

A walk she frankly enjoyed. Strolling with just Dillon, Rus, and Adelaide was relaxing; she didn't have to be on guard socially. Although other couples and groups crossed their path, all merely exchanged greetings, swapped comments on the weather or the entertainments they expected to attend that evening, then moved on.

Following Rus and Adelaide down the gravel path that led to the banks of the Serpentine, it was on the tip of her tongue to mention that yesterday, she'd had to fight off the gentlemen, both the eligible and the not-so-eligible, when caution, and suspicion, caught her tongue.

She glanced at Dillon; while she might know what lurked beneath his urbanity, there was nothing in his appearance as he gazed about to declare his possessiveness. Nothing she could see that could possibly be warning other gentlemen away—off, as if he owned her.

He sensed her gaze, turned his head, and caught her eyes. Arched a dark brow.

She looked ahead to where the slate waters of the lake rippled beneath the breeze. “I was just thinking how pleasant it was to walk in the fresh air.” She glanced at him. “I haven't walked this way, or so far, before. Indeed, yesterday there were so many around, I got barely ten yards from the carriage.”

Dillon kept his smile easy and assured. “One day, a few appear
ances at balls, can make a big difference in the ton. Once people know who you are…”

She tilted her head, and seemed to accept the suggestion.

He studied her face, then looked ahead, and reiterated his earlier wisdom. There was absolutely no sense in explaining just how the good ladies and the interested gentlemen were interpreting his driving her in the park, and strolling with her over the lawns, at least not yet, not given the suspicion he'd glimpsed in her eyes.

After the standard half hour, he gathered Rus and Adelaide and steered the three back to the waiting carriages.

Flick beamed at him; she was thrilled to her teeth that he was behaving as he was. He could only pray she didn't do anything to give Pris's nascent suspicions some direction.

“Celia's?” He did his best to distract Flick as Rus handed Adelaide into the carriage. He kept his hand over Pris's on his sleeve.

“Yes.” Flick glanced at Eugenia, who smiled at him.

“Lady Celia insisted that we impose on you—her very words were: be
sure
to bring him, too.”

Dillon had no difficulty believing that. “In that case, Pris and I will follow in my curricle.”

Flick waved. “Go ahead. Your horses will hate to be held back behind us.”

He looked down at Pris. “Would you rather travel in the carriage?”

The look she bent on him was measuring. Turning, she surveyed his blacks. “Flick's horses are well enough, but given the choice, I prefer yours.”

They parted from the others. He led her to the curricle and helped her up to the seat. He was climbing up to sit beside her when she asked, “Can I handle the ribbons?”

He grasped the reins and sat beside her. “Only after I die.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I'm perfectly proficient.”

“Really?”

While they rattled over the London streets, she tried to persuade him to entrust his prize cattle with their velvet mouths to her. In vain.

She was distinctly huffy when he drew up outside Lady Celia Cynster's house, but the gathering inside distracted her.

He found it distracting, too; he was constantly on pins that one of the assembled ladies—those of the wider Cynster clan as well as many of their connections and a significant collection of their bosom-bows—would make some comment that would alert Pris to his strategy. While the ladies certainly saw and understood it, and were quick to twit him over it, while those like Horatia, Helena, and Honoria came tantalizingly close to saying one word too many in Pris's hearing, all deigned to let him escape. For the moment.

The implication was obvious. They expected action. They expected success.

“The truth,” he growled, in response to Flick's query regarding progress, specifically his, “is that I'd rather be reporting to the Jockey Club Committee on yet another substitution scam—one I had no notion existed—than face this inquisition if I fail.”

Flick arched her brows at him. “But you aren't going to fail, are you?”

“No. But a trifle less pressure would be appreciated.”

She grinned and patted his arm. “Gentlemen like you respond best to artfully applied pressure.”

She swanned off before, astonished, he could reply.

“Artful?”
he grumbled to Vane, Flick's brother-in-law, when he unexpectedly appeared. “They're as artful as Edward I—the Hammer of the Scots.”

Vane grinned. “We've all had to live through it. We survived. No doubt you will, too.”

“One can but hope,” Dillon muttered, as Pris came up to join them.

He introduced her to Vane. Straightening from his bow, Vane shot him an intrigued glance—as if he now understood Dillon's uncertainty. None of those who'd run the Cynster ladies' gauntlet before had had to deal with a lady quite like Pris.

One in whom the wild and reckless held quite so much sway.

“I wanted to congratulate you”—Vane included them both, and Rus nearby, in his glance—“on your success in bringing the substitution racket to such a resounding end. It was a significant risk, so Demon tells me, but from all I'm hearing, the results have been extraordinary.”

“What have you heard?” Pris asked.

Vane smiled at her. Watching, Dillon noted that the legendary Cynster charm had no discernible effect on Pris; she waited, patently undeflected. Vane glanced briefly at Dillon, so fleetingly Dillon was sure Pris didn't catch his infinitesimal nod.

Looking back at her, choosing his words with a care Dillon appreciated, Vane replied, “The atmosphere in the gentlemen's clubs is one of open glee. Further down the social scale, there's much nodding and wise comments, and a gratifying spreading of the word to beware of being drawn into such schemes.”

Glancing at Dillon, he continued, “Lower still, and comments are rather hotter and a great deal sharper. It's like a seething cauldron, with everyone looking for who to blame.”

Dillon raised his brows. “No word on who that is?”

“None that I've heard, although there's quite an army searching.” Vane looked across the room. “But here's one who might have some light to shed on that.”

Turning, Pris beheld yet another tall, elegant, patently dangerous gentleman. All the Cynster males seemed to be cast from the same mold; glancing back at Dillon while they waited for the other to finish greeting Lady Celia—from her comments he was one of her sons, by name Rupert—Pris found no difficulty seeing Dillon as part of the crew.

The same elegance—languid in repose, like a sated cat, but that could change in a flash to a hard-edged ruthlessness that the outer cloak of civilized behavior did little to mute or disguise. The same strength, not just of muscle and bone, although that was plainly there, but a strength of purpose, of decision and execution.