Leslie Lafoy (34 page)

“Boredom is a way of life for some people.”

True. Not that she’d ever known it was possible until the hordes had descended on Ryland Castle. She’d learned a lot about a great many things in the last few days. “Do you think Lady Aubrey knows about . . . well, any of it?”

He cleared his throat softly and lazily answered, “I have no idea. Why don’t you ask her for us?”

“Thank you, no.” Lady Aubrey didn’t have conversations. She pronounced, instructed, monitored, corrected, interrogated, and guarded. Oh, did she guard. From dawn to midnight, day in and day out. Thank goodness the woman slept at night. If she ever availed herself of Lady Gregory’s coca supply, there’d be no escaping her, no respite from the dreary expectations.

“Why is it,” she mused, “that everyone is obsessed about a woman’s reputation being untarnished before she’s married and then don’t care at all once she is?”

It took him a moment, but he eventually cleared his throat to say, “Huh?”

Caroline smiled. “You’re asleep, aren’t you?”

“Wide awa . . .”

Chuckling softly, she turned in his arms and reached across him to put the empty wine glass on the night table.

“Don’t go,” he murmured, his hand skimming over her backside. “Please.”

“I’m not,” she promised as she gathered up the books and set them beside the glass. She turned down the wick in the lamp until the light went out. “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

He muttered something too thick with sleep to be understood, gathered her back into his arms and rolled them both onto their sides. Her head lying on his arm, Caroline threaded her fingers gently, slowly through his hair. What an interesting man he was. So different from all the others she’d ever known. She smiled. How deeply she’d hated him the day he’d walked into her shop. Her smile widened. How intensely they’d made love that same night.

As she looked back, it seemed insane. Normal people didn’t go from loathing each other to being passionate lovers in the span of a single day. Of course, what she’d loathed had been his attempts to be something, someone, he wasn’t. But he hadn’t been able to sustain the façade, and as it had crumbled and she’d seen the real man behind it . . .

Her smile faded. As amazing as it was, somewhere in that first day, she’d handed him her heart. And then gone through all the days and nights since pretending that she hadn’t. She’d spent hours and hours thinking about him, about being with him, and telling herself that it wasn’t anything more than a keen appreciation for his skills as a lover and the thrill of a reckless, forbidden desire.

Without knowing it, he’d done his part in preserving the illusion. He’d smiled at her, teased her, taunted her, and tempted her. Relentlessly, wonderfully, and so deliciously that falling into his arms and letting him satisfy the hunger was all she thought of, all she needed and wanted.

Until that evening in the parlor when she’d hardly been able to stand in the aftermath of the pleasure and realized that it wasn’t enough, that she wanted more. That she wanted a life with him. How close she’d come to having her own façade crumble in that moment and how desperately she’d scrambled to save it. She’d declared the need to be sensible and called an end to their affair. And in the moments after he’d called her bluff and walked away . . . How confidently she’d assured herself that she was wrong. How boldly she’d committed herself to letting passion run its course until it ceased to exist.

She studied his face in the darkness and knew that she’d been lying to herself all along. It had never been a
simple matter of sex purely for the sake of physical satisfaction. Not for her. She just hadn’t been able to hear the whisper of her heart and soul over the pounding of her blood and the strident demands of her body. No, that wasn’t entirely true, she admitted, closing her eyes. She hadn’t wanted to hear them.

It was one thing to surrender to physical temptation. The thrill of it was undeniable, the satisfactions so heady and deep. And she knew how to manage the life that came after the passion faded and died and you were left alone. She’d watched her mother do it and she’d learned that it was perfectly survivable.

But loving a man, heart and soul, was another matter entirely. When the passion was gone and you were left alone with a love that wasn’t wanted . . . She knew nothing about surviving that. Nothing at all.

She swallowed down her fearful tears and took a long, deep breath. She couldn’t run away from this, couldn’t deny that she’d committed herself to the most dangerous journey she’d ever take. There was nothing to do but accept the truth and hope the day never came when Drayton walked away. Hope that somehow, someday soon, he would look at her and hear a whisper from his heart, too.

And if he didn’t . . . She wouldn’t think about that. She’d live every moment as it came and be happy. She’d make good memories, collecting them and holding them close in her heart. And hope that she died a very old woman in Drayton Mackenzie’s arms.

  Eighteen  

A COSTUME BALL, CAROLINE SILENTLY GROUSED AS SHE
stood in the back doorway of the butler’s pantry and watched the rain puddle in the yard. Of all the stupid, ridiculous things . . . Obviously these people didn’t have enough responsibilities to keep them productively occupied. And of course it never occurred to them that she did and that planning a costume ball for their distraction might just be a bit more than she wanted to deal with. More, she silently snarled, than
with which
she wanted to deal.

A good hostess grants her guests’ every wish.

Well, she hadn’t been able to pull a scandalous trial out of a hat for them four days ago. And she’d been trying to part the clouds and stop the rain—and their whining—for the last two. God, what she wouldn’t give to have them all wish to go home. That she’d happily see make happen before the hour was out. But, since there was still food and liquor in the house, the odds were they weren’t going anywhere else anytime soon and that she was going to have to make the best of it. And beg the exhausted, harried staff to do the same.

Winfield and Mrs. Gladder had taken the news rather well, considering; Mrs. Gladder managing a weak smile
and a weary assurance that it would be a lovely occasion, and Winfield turning a bit pale, rocking back on his heels, and somehow not swearing. She’d left them after that, thinking that they probably would prefer to cry in private.

Now, five minutes later, she eyed the kitchen and regretted her offer to inform Cook and the kitchen staff that, in addition to the already constant work of feeding the army encamped at Ryland Castle, a banquet feast loomed on their horizon. If they didn’t attack her with their cleavers, she’d be extremely lucky. Or not, depending on how she looked at it. People who were dead or seriously maimed were allowed to beg off planning stupid parties.

So did people who couldn’t be found, she decided, her gaze going to the stable. No one was out riding in the rain. And the stable boys were over in the conservatory, helping Mr. Henry as they always did on days when no one was riding. Just her and the horses and a blessed, desperately needed stretch of solitude. Gathering her skirts, she lifted her hems above her ankles and dashed across the open space.

She was soaked to the skin and chilled by the time she reached the doors and slipped inside. The warmth and the earthy scents swirled around her in an instant. She smiled down at the tendrils of steam rising from the sleeve of her dress.

“Hello.”

She turned, her heart dancing, to find Drayton leaning back against the wheel of a carriage, his booted ankles crossed and his arms folded across his chest. No jacket, no tie, the neck of his white shirt open just enough that she could see a few crisp dark hairs.

Solitude wasn’t all that wonderful, she decided, moving toward him. And certainly not the only thing that could calm her spirit. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

He grinned and opened his arms for her. “Hiding. What are you doing here?”

She stepped into them, twined her arms around his neck, and smiled up at him. “Hiding with you.”

“You looked decidedly frustrated when you came in.”

Well, that was then. Things had improved considerably in the moments since. “If I hear the words ‘ladies do not’ and ‘a good hostess always’ one more time, I’ll scream.”

“Is there anything that ladies are allowed to do?”

Oh, when he smiled that crooked little smile of his . . . Threading her fingers through the hair at his nape, she happily replied, “What very few things I’m permitted to do are hideously close to tortures. Do you know that Lady Aubrey actually made me walk about the upstairs hall for thirty minutes this morning with a book balanced on my head?”

“It must have been painful.”

No, it had been a little thing that had slipped off at the slightest wobble, but if he thought she’d been in pain . . . “And she finds my dress designs far too unconventional to be even marginally acceptable.”

“I hope you’re drawing the line with her right there and holding it.”

“I hate my life.” She grinned. “Well, most of it, anyway.”

“You just dislike having restrictions placed on you.”

“Dislike?” She arched a brow. “I passed dislike at noon three days ago. I have since progressed into fullblown resentment.”

“It’ll be all right, Caroline. I promise.”

“No it won’t,” she countered, reveling in her pessimism. “I swear to God, I’m going to run off with the first eligible bachelor I can find in London. Just to escape her.”

“Don’t do that,” he asked, planting a little kiss on the end of her nose. “If she’s that bad, I’ll send her and her legions packing.”

“She’s trying to be helpful,” she admitted, feeling a bit guilty for her criticisms. “In her own, tightly corseted way.”

Drayton shook his head and drawled, “No, go back to hating her. It’s nice to have you loathe someone more than me.”

She laughed and tugged at his hair. “I don’t loathe you.”

“Really?” His smile curved upward. “Damn. I was looking forward to that.”

“I know you were,” she teased. “That’s why I decided to go back to simply not loving you.”

His eyes sparkled and his smile went wide and wicked. “I’ll take that. I have very fond memories of being callously, selfishly used by you.”

“And you’d gladly let me use you so again. Right this very moment if I want.”

“I can make you forget all about being frustrated and resentful.”

Oh, yes, he could indeed. He could make her forget the world beyond them even existed.

“Oh, darling Caroline,” he murmured, angling his head to the side. “Do I see a flicker of temptation in those lovely blue eyes of yours?”

“Lady Aubrey says they’re nondescript.”

“What does she know?” he asked, shifting his stance to draw her closer against him.

“She says that my mouth is too large.”

“I know for a fact that it’s just the right size.”

“And that my breasts are too small,” she added, feeling her nipples tighten and her breasts strain against the thin lawn of her corset.

“Anything more than a handful is a waste.”

“She says that I’m unremarkable in every way and that it will take a miracle for any man to notice me among the potted palms.”

He cocked a brow and slowly ran his hands down over her backside. “Really,” he murmured, his eyes darkening as he settled her hips against his. “Let me assure you, darling Caroline, that Lady Aubrey doesn’t know a damn thing about what men find attractive.”

His need pressed hard into the pillow of her abdomen, her body quivering in anticipation, she smiled up at him. “You bring out the absolute worst in me, Drayton.”

“I hope you’re not expecting me to apologize for it.”

“No, I’m not hoping for that at all.”

“What are you hoping for, Caroline?”

She slipped her hands down over his shoulders and in across the broad planes of his chest. Opening a button of his shirt, she said, “That you don’t have anywhere to be for the next seven minutes. And that you have a fantasy about a carriage, too.”

“Oh, yes,” he murmured, taking her hands from his shirtfront and drawing her along to the carriage door. “Allow me to assist you inside, Lady Caroline.”