Duty Before Desire (27 page)

“And I suppose you are?” she asked tartly.

Sheri's eyes opened.

Her lips quirked to the side, one brow arched in challenge.

Unable to resist, Sheri drew her closer and executed a wide turn, causing his thigh to brush against hers. “You're waltzing with me perfectly well. My toes are wonderfully intact.”

Her mouth screwed up and her back tensed. Sheri noticed how firm the muscles there felt below his hand. And the arm that she held aloft carried its own weight; her hand rested only lightly upon his. Arcadia Parks was strong.

The revelation further stirred his blood. At every turn, she had proved his presuppositions wrong. How would she surprise him next?

“I wish to say something,” her melodious voice pronounced.

Yes, please.
Anything. He'd happily listen to her read French's household ledger for the joy of holding that voice in his ears.

At his nod, her chin firmed. “At the risk of sounding ungrateful, my lord, the events of today do not rest easy with me.”

She related her trip to Madame Doucet and the disaster of her dancing lesson, as well as the reasons why she found both objectionable.

“It must sound like foolishness to you.” She worried her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes anxious.

It did, in truth. It had never crossed Sheri's mind that an Englishwoman would find a ball distasteful for cultural reasons, much less that a chit half raised in a harem would harbor more stringent notions of modesty than any other maiden in London. The more Sheri learned of this
zenana
of hers, the more it sounded like a convent rather than a harem.

His face must have betrayed some of his thoughts, for her step suddenly faltered. He secured her with his arm and kept right on waltzing.

“I will try,” she said, her tone imploring. “I don't wish to embarrass your family.”

“Oh, the family can go hang.” To her startled expression, he gave a rueful smile. “If anyone should be embarrassed, it is I. Mother was in a rare lather because of my manifold sins. I should have put her off when she insisted on meeting you, but I didn't suspect she'd be so uncivil.”

“To be fair, she likely did not suspect she would be knocked to the ground by her prospective daughter-in-law.”

“Deborah has never done anything half so brutal.”

“Of course not,” Arcadia muttered. “She'd never have to.”

Sheri chuckled. It felt wonderful to laugh with a pretty woman in his arms and music—damn, were they already on to a new tune?—buoying them on a cloud. “Indeed, if my dear sister-in-law wished Mother cast to the depths, she'd need only ask, and who could resist her?”

“Not I,” Arcadia answered. “I agreed to wear an obscene gown because I couldn't bear to hurt her feelings.”

The mental image that jolted to mind thudded right to his groin. He did his level best to ignore it. “I'm convinced her unassailable kindness is really a Machiavellian device to enact the most angelic tyranny in history.”

“A reasonable conclusion.”

They shared a look of warm humor, which did little to blunt the edge of desire now slicing him from within, little by little. Nor did it lighten the burden of knowing he must raise a subject that had the potential to undo them both.

“Miss Parks,” he said haltingly. “Arcadia.”

“Yes?” She offered a teasing smile. Her hip deliberately nudged his hand. Saucy wench. Maddening, delectable, impossible wench. Below her breath, she hummed along with the melody. Through her breasts pressed lightly to his chest, Sheri felt the vibration. On the next turn, he lifted her off her feet. She laughed as her skirts swung wide, the hand on his shoulder clasping him tight, like she'd never let go.

“I'm afraid, peahen, that you might not fully grasp what our arrangement means.”

The laughter in her eyes remained. “It means you will marry me and find my peacock and send me back to India. Quite a bargain in exchange for my participation.”

Damn him. He should remain silent. He should marry her as planned and take her to bed, slake his lust upon her lean, strong body and learn what his name sounded like when cried in ecstasy in that rich voice. Then, and only then, could he let her go.

“It means you can never return to England. Not to good society, at least. And it means you can never lawfully marry another man. You'll never have children that are recognized as legitimate. Are you prepared to give that up?”

Well. That wiped the smile right off her face, as he knew it would.

For himself, Sheri had no concern on the subject of issue. Unless some freak accident wiped his brother and both nephews from the face of the earth, the Lothgard marquisate demanded no sons of Sheri's blood. He could safely plan on leading a quasi bachelorhood for the remainder of his life.

He was a cad for thinking so, but the perplexed frown that drew her lips downward was adorable. The shallow dip in her chin deepened to a dimple he was sorely tempted to taste.

“What are you saying?” she asked. “What if I'm not prepared to relinquish those things?”

“Then I won't hold you to our agreement. You'll be free to go.”

Arcadia broke from his grasp. Quick breaths caused the bodice of her dress to draw tight across her breasts. Despite the matronly neckline, the tight fit of the top left little to the imagination.

“That's just it; I won't be free to go.” Panting, she turned her face toward the French windows. The pink tip of her tongue swiped across her lip at a bead of perspiration. “If I don't marry you, they'll force me to marry elsewhere. Poorvaja and I will be stuck here. If I marry you,” she gestured with an arm, “at least I'll be able to return to India. Those things, a husband and children, those were the price of my coming to England in the first place.”

But even that had not really been her choice, he knew. She sounded so resigned to her fate, he almost offered to rescue her from it. He could pay for her passage to India, kidnap her from her aunt and uncle, and smuggle her onto the next ship sailing for Bombay. That would be the noble thing to do. Possibly the right thing to do.

But then he would be in the same grim predicament he'd been in before striking a deal with an Indian colonial. He would still be on the hook to find a bride, and had little hope of encountering another so willing and eager to leave him to live his life in peace.

And so he did not offer to be the gallant knight she so desperately needed.

“So you willingly hold to our arrangement?”

She nodded without hesitation. “Absolutely.”

He bent his neck. “Very well.” Taking her once more into his arms, he resumed their interrupted waltz. He rested his chin alongside her temple. “And I vow not to press untoward advances on you again. I hope you'll permit me some minor displays of affection for the sake of convincing the world of our match, but otherwise, I shall be the picture of propriety. I shan't trouble you for more than our agreed-upon wedding night. You still haven't said whether you accept my apology, by the by.”

“Haven't I? Of course I do,” she answered. She was warm and pliant in his arms and smelled like verbena and the dream of distant shores.

“Arcadia?” he said after a moment.

“Hm?”

“Don't change. Not for Deborah, not for my mother, and damned well not for me. I like you just the way you are, you know. Be as modest or as scandalous as you like. Don't dance at our ball, or dance every set—with me, or whomever you wish. I shall be content, so long as you are.”

She slanted a look at him brimming with confusion. “Truly?”

He grunted his assent.

The clouds of confusion dissipated on a beaming smile. Her eyes were stained glass, illuminated from within. “You're my best friend, Sheri. The very best thing about England.”

The unexpected remark hit him with the force of a cannonball packed with guilt in lieu of gunpowder. She knew the cost and she was willing to pay. He would have everything he wanted, a night with Arcadia, and then a lifetime of liberation. Why, then, did their bargain feel like impending disaster?

“Have I told you yet how enchanting you look this evening?”

“Not in those precise words, my lord,” Arcadia whispered back, meeting Sheri's warm gaze. “Thus far, you have called me
beautiful
,
resplendent
, and
breathtaking
.
Enchanting
is a new entry to the list.”

“I hope you've plenty of ink and parchment, for it shall not be the final word you hear on the subject, I vow.” His eyes made another slow perusal of her person from tip to toe, lingering on her bosom, causing no end of embarrassment.

After another visit to Madame Doucet for a final fitting, Arcadia now suffered the indignity of this obscene dress. A sheer overlayer of pistachio silk floated above a cloth-of-gold underdress. The skirts were cut on the bias below the high waist, accentuating the nip of her waist and the flare of her hips. The bodice was nothing more than two swags of the green silk draped perilously low, meeting in a deep vee between her breasts. Tiny gold beads were sewn into the folds, adding gleam rather than sparkle. An edge of the gold underdress peeked above the green, but all of her tugging and cursing had afforded her only another scant inch of decency.

As it was, the tops of Arcadia's breasts erupted over the low neckline, presented with great fanfare like two pale sweet dumplings on a gold offering platter in a Hindu temple.

In the back, her shoulder blades were also exposed, leaving her feeling half-naked. Perversely, her hands, one part she cared nothing about covering, were encased in white satin gloves that reached all the way to her elbows.

Despite stringently protesting the event, Poorvaja had spent two hours dressing Arcadia's hair. Each strand had been carefully wrapped around a curling rod, then finger-combed to achieve loose waves. The ayah then lightly oiled her fingers and deftly twisted sections from the left side up to the crown of Arcadia's head, creating a shining, fanciful swirl. The remainder had been left to cascade loose over Arcadia's right shoulder.

The glint of appreciation in Sheri's eyes as he once more followed the trail of her hair to the gulley between her breasts might not have been too bad, were they in private. But there had been no private moments of late. In the nearly two weeks since renewing their agreement at her dancing lesson, Sheri had been the very picture of a dutiful fiancé, calling often and taking Arcadia for drives or out looking for her peacock (no luck on that front). They'd been to see the menagerie at the Tower and to the theater. On days he didn't come to call, he sent little gifts of flowers, candies, and ribbons.

He'd courted her for all to see, a man besotted by his bride. Lies. All lies. The moment she called him her best friend, a barrier had dropped between them like a portcullis slamming home. His courtship had been empty of the frank exchanges she had most appreciated about him.

As the door opened to admit the first guests, he gave her a secret smile, and Arcadia's heart performed a somersault. Why must he be such a very convincing liar? Then she was smiling at faces she'd soon forget, repeating names she'd never remember. Sheri introduced her as
my darling Miss Parks
and called her
the woman who has made me the happiest of men
. And all these people—the same ones who had tittered about her fainting spell in Hyde Park and repeated unkind things about her after she'd walked down St. James's Street—swallowed Sheri's sugary, whopping falsehoods and wished them happy.

Could she and Sheri really get away with this? What if someone discovered their plan to marry and separate, and put a stop to it? What if she was, after all, forced to marry Cousin … Oh, gracious, what was his name?

“Cousin Cyril!” Lady Delafield enthused as she accepted a buss on the cheek from a gentleman, “what a marvelous surprise! Allow me to make you known to our dear Lucretia's daughter, Miss Arcadia Parks.”

The man Arcadia had narrowly evaded was nothing like the old, doddering country parson she'd envisaged when her uncle first mentioned sending for her mother's cousin to come marry the family
enfant terrible
. To be sure, a little age showed at the corners of the vicar's eyes and in his thinning hair. But he retained youthful good looks, aided, perhaps, by strong bones—including the family chin, which showed much more favorably on a male than on a female like herself, Arcadia noted. His somber black-and-white attire only set him apart from the glittering gathering.

Reverend Mr. Cousin Cyril Fisk bowed over her hand, then kissed her cheek. At her side, she felt Sheri stiffen.

“You've the look of your mother,” her cousin said, a wistful gleam in his eye. “A rare flower she was, Lucretia. You can't imagine the torment I suffered in having you offered before me, then snatched away at once.”

His eyes flitted to Arcadia's décolletage.

“Darling, who is this?” Sheri interjected, his tone polite, but the flash of his teeth promising new kinds of suffering.

She felt a feminine thrill, while holding back a giggle. Almost, she regretted not having had the opportunity to get to know Fisk as a suitor, if he could inspire jealousy in the great Chère Zouche. If she must tolerate the adoring looks three-quarters of the females present cast in the direction of her intended, then certainly he could survive her being admired by one country parson.

Sir Godwin came, too, and Arcadia was glad to see him, despite—or perhaps, a little because of—a repetition of Sheri's possessive display. Soon after him came the De Veres. Claudia kissed Arcadia's cheek and made her turn a circle so she could see the finished gown. With a promise to talk later, Claudia took her husband's arm and disappeared into the ballroom. Arcadia was grateful for the vivacious young matron's friendship. Her social circle in London was embarrassingly small. She missed the closeness of the little English community of the station, and the rowdy fun of the
zenana
at Poorvaja's family home.