Master of Love (15 page)

“Callista . . .”

But she was on a roll and not to be stopped, as all the indignation and humiliation of the day—
dear God, of the past year!
—tumbled out in a flood of boiling ire. “I'm sure it's almost impossible for you to comprehend, as a man of power and wealth, but women like me are propositioned all the time. And I don't mean because I have any great beauty or appeal, but simply because I'm a woman alone, without the protection of a father or husband or brother. Men can't seem to conceive that we can exist without them, or that we'd prefer to earn our living other than on our backs.”

“No man worthy of the name would ever use force against a woman, or try to coerce her with money against her will.”

She swiped at her eyes. “I know. But guess what?” She spat out the bitter words. “It happens every day.”

He fished in his inner pocket for a handkerchief and held it out. “I'm not like them, Callista,” he said quietly. “I'd never hurt you. Nor take advantage. Not all men are like that.”

She took the crisp linen square and wiped at her traitor eyes. “Perhaps not, my lord, but are you really so different?
The Master of Love,
” she mocked snidely. “Isn't your reputation legendary in that regard?”

A muscle clenched along his jawline, and she was pleased to see him angry at her. Anything to spare her his pity.

“You think I'm like those two vicious buffoons?”

She grimaced and gave ground. “No—but I don't know what to think of you! You certainly cultivate that reputation of devil-may-care lover in society. You have mistresses, too, just like them, don't you? And you've looked at me the same way they did.”

“Really? Is it the same way?” He straightened back against the seat cushion.

She rushed on, ignoring the frigid dignity of his question. “Can you imagine how infuriating, how degrading it is, day after day, to have idiots like those two look at you and only see your sex, to have them judge you constantly by your looks and how they might get you into their bed? To have your abilities and ambitions disregarded, simply because you're a woman? I'm far better educated than most men! I
know
books, I've studied collections, I understand the business of the trade, but no one takes me seriously, since I'm merely of ‘the fair sex'!”

“Actually, I do have some idea, Callista.” He looked down to study a perfectly buffed thumbnail. “No one takes me seriously either. Too pretty, it seems.” He shrugged in apparent disinterest, cutting her a glance through dark golden lashes far too long and curled for any man.

She blinked, mouth open, stopped dead in her tracks.

She said nothing for a long moment, simply looked at him—really looked, for the first time ever. She held his gaze head-on to see past that blinding beauty to the man he was.

Dominick kept his eyes on her, as if in a dare. It was like holding her eyes steady on the sun until scales burned away and dropped off.

And then, suddenly, it all clicked in place. She saw
him
.

The whole Master of Love farce, the way he hid his writing, the separations he maintained between his social circle in the ton and his friends among the city's intellectuals.
No one took him seriously.
Not the philosophers he supported as patron, not the ton. Was it all just a role he played?

She didn't know what to say.

He held her gaze, not moving an inch, and then said, slowly, “I take you seriously.”

She swallowed and gave the smallest of nods. “Dominick.” His name slipped out. “Yes, you do.” It was all she could manage. London disappeared, and her world shrank down to this: her looking at him, and
seeing
him. Him, Dominick: his fierce nobility of character, the strength of his intelligence, the power of the man he was behind the face fate gave him.

He
did
take her seriously. And in his dark liquid eyes she saw mirrored the soul-deep hurt that, all his life long, no one had ever returned him the courtesy.

“I admit I think about you with desire.” He reached for her hands again. “You're an intelligent, beautiful, fascinating woman. But I'd never insult you with a demand you serve me as mistress.”

“I could never be your mistress,” she declared, and was surprised at how wistful her voice sounded.

“What about a man's esteemed friend and lover? Would you ever consider that, Callista?”

The quiet question drained away the last of her anger. “What's the difference?” she asked, dubious.

“Lovers are equals. A mistress, in the end, is a financial arrangement.”

“And why would a woman consent to such a relationship?”

“Companionship, desire, pleasure. Surely even a paragon of strength such as yourself gets lonely sometimes.”

It felt like an abyss opening in front of her. Looking into those dark eyes, she felt herself tottering. She
was
lonely, and often sad, and so tired of struggling alone. She hadn't understood before but knew now the pull of desire to which he referred. But it was such dangerous new territory, from which there would be no return. Overton's words came back to her:
Everyone knows how quickly he moves on
. And yet there was a steadiness in his gaze as he looked at her now.

She swallowed hard and looked away. “I realize such things happen among the couples of the ton. But an unmarried woman has more to lose in such an arrangement. I can barely earn a living now. Were I known as your lover, my reputation would truly be in shreds.”

“Some would care,” he admitted, “but others, the more interesting bohemian circles, wouldn't. And we could be discreet. I could protect you. As you say, I'm rich and powerful. What use is being a viscount if you can't turn your station to the advantage of friends?”

She pulled her hands away and pushed back against the velvet of the cushions. “Why are you saying this?” she cried wildly. “I don't need this!”

“For some reason, I think we both need each other,” he murmured. “But you're right, of course—as usual, my dear.” He straightened up, and she almost heard his Master of Love mask click back in place. “Wicked of me to make such a suggestion.”

The horses pulled to a stop and Meacham held them still while the tiger jumped down to set the steps.

“Thank you for the invitation to accompany you to the lecture this evening.” She looked down, more deeply rattled by this strange intimacy suddenly sprung up with Dominick than by her encounter with Overton and Harris.

“I will see to your honor, Callista. You may rest assured on that front.”

She glanced up, frowning. “What are you intending? Nothing foolish, I hope. Those two don't deserve a second thought.”

“You needn't worry yourself over it. Nor about your reputation. I've been lax in attending to matters as I should, but I'll see things are put right.”

“I think certain rumors have been spread that may be hard to undo,” she said cautiously, not wanting to name names and unsure of his present relationship with Lady Barrington. “I accepted the commission to work unchaperoned in your home. I accept responsibility for the consequences as well.”

With a sad smile, he cupped her cheek. “That's your problem, Callista—you accept far too much. Even Billy sees that. The responsibilities you take on would sink a lesser soul.” He rapped twice sharply on the carriage paneling. “Now go put some ice on your arm.” The door swung open, and he handed her out to the tiger before she could reply.

As darkness settled on the ride back across town, Dom formulated his plan. He'd stop at his clubs first, to track down that damned Overton and his friend Harris before the night was over. Tomorrow, he'd call on his sister and enlist her help. His mother was due back in town soon, but her reputation wasn't the best for the social rehabilitation he needed performed on Callista's behalf. And he'd have to call on Anna, Lady Barrington, as well. He'd hoped they could simply drift cordially apart but saw now that strategy had backfired badly. Not for him, but for Callista, if the dark looks Anna had thrown his way all evening were any indication. He had an idea, however, that just might resolve that situation.

All of which left him with only one last problem to solve.

Callista herself.

Chapter 9

C
ould her too-gorgeous-for-his-own-good brother finally be showing some real intelligence?

“Are you thinking of marriage to Miss Higginbotham, Dom?” Jane asked her brother the next afternoon in St. James's Park.

Dom almost fell over into the duck pond; he was rescuing Henry's yellow boat, stranded among the lily pads. “Marriage? To Callista? Good God, Jane—no! I'm not thinking of marriage at all. And Callista—why, she's the bluest of the bluestockings! What a ridiculous match we'd be! The laughingstock of society!” He sputtered on, escaping her question by going around the other side of the pond for the boat.

Jane would have laughed at his overwrought protests, except she saw how much the poor wretch believed them to be true. She loved her brother. She truly did. The problem was, he was an idiot.

Oh, not in the sense everyone else thought him, an idiot: a shallow lothario without a brain in his pretty-boy head, given over entirely to games of love. She was probably the only one who realized how brilliant Dom really was and how much he took after their father in that regard. His shame and insecurity over his intellectual interests had been drilled into him by the cold contempt of their father. As a girl, she'd been spared that contempt, although the complete indifference with which he'd treated her was hardly any better. At least he'd speak to Dom, if only to berate him as ridiculous-looking. Her, he'd simply ignored.

She sighed over the old wounds. Silly to still care. Worse, however, was how she'd let it affect her life choices. Her husband, the Earl of Yarborough, was universally admired as a great political orator. But he was as cold and emotionally distant as her father had been. Their mother realized early on in Gideon's brief courtship how similar the young politician was to her father, for whom they'd just come out of mourning. She'd even understood what Jane was up to, in trying to win his love. Jane would have said not listening to her mother's warning was the worst mistake she'd ever made, except that it produced her two boys. She hadn't succeeded in getting Gideon to love her, any more than she had her father, but she'd learned to be a good political wife and she'd birthed two wonderful sons who soaked up her love and lavished it back on her.

For her, it didn't matter so much—many society couples lived separate lives—but Gideon's cold disinterest in Jason and Henry pierced her heart. If not for Dom's constant loving presence in the boys' lives, she'd have despaired over their lack of a father figure. As it was, her brother adored the boys and spent hours on end with them. In fact, it often struck her as the only time Dom seemed truly happy.

“It would only seem odd if you insisted on playing Master of Love,” she replied mildly when he finally returned.

“I am what I am, Jane,” he said. “A leopard can't change its spots.” He straightened the boat's sails and called for Henry, who was chasing ducks in the breezy sunshine around the pond's other side.

She shook her head, exasperated at their old argument. “You're not just your ‘spots,' Dom. It's what's inside that's important. You and Miss Higginbotham share many common interests in your love of books and philosophy.”

“What's philosophy, Uncle Dom'nick?” Jason toddled up with his blue boat and the governess, ready for another race.

“Nothing important,” Dom muttered.

“Why do you love it then, like Mama said?” The three-year-old looked up at him with the same dark brown eyes the family males had all inherited from the late Lord Rexton. Yet where that scholar's gaze had been harsh and judgmental—whether evaluating a text or his disappointing family—Dom's and her boys' eyes always put Jane in mind of a soulful deer.

“This conversation has gone on long enough,” her brother declared. “Ah, here's Henry—you brought the kite, didn't you? Race each other up the hilltop, boys, and we'll fly it.”

Dom sent the governess trailing after the whooping boys and turned back to Jane. “Through no fault of her own, Miss Higginbotham has become the target of gossip and unwelcome advances. In fact, the fault is my own for stupidly allowing a situation to develop. I'll do what I can to nip it at the source, but I'd appreciate any efforts you could manage as a well-respected society matron to repair the damage as well.”

Jane looked at her brother for a long moment. She'd known for some time her command performance as hostess at Rexton House had to do with the intriguing “Miss H.,” as that cheeky footboy called her. And she knew she'd been called in to replace Lady Barrington, who with her friend Lady Vaughnley had been spreading subtle but most unpleasant insinuations about this young lady. “It won't be easy, as much harm has been done. But I like her, Dom, so I'll do what I can for her sake.” She reached up to rest a gloved hand against the chiseled planes of his cheek. His face was a sculpture of arrogant male perfection. Hardly anyone, Jane knew, saw more than that in her brother, or believed there could be any depth beneath such beauty. “And for your sake,” she added quietly.

He said nothing, merely narrowed those dark liquid eyes at her before loping off after the boys. A memory came to mind of a magnificent stag shot high in the shoulder during a hunt at their country seat of Yarborough Manor. She'd become separated from the group and had surprised the stag in some woods, its blood dripping and chest heaving as it sought to escape the dogs. Their gazes—hers and the deer's—had locked for a long moment before it ran again. In its wounded stare, she'd read pain and exhaustion and pride and defiance. Their game warden spent three days tracking the stag to the creek bank where it finally collapsed and died.

Sometimes she wondered how long her brother had before he collapsed as well, and how much of him would be left inside when—and if—he finally stopped running.

Early the next week as the guests departed after luncheon, Lord Gordon—whose passion was the philosophy of the Renaissance—handed Callista a list of Latin and Italian texts and asked if she could handle the order. She was stunned to see how long it was. And later that afternoon, as she was tidying the library to leave for the day, Graves delivered an invitation from Dominick's sister for her and Lady Mildred to attend a musical entertainment Lady Yarborough was hosting at her Belgravia mansion three days hence.

Callista ascertained from the butler that Dominick was back from his mysterious afternoon outings and working on estate business in the study, it being the carpenters' day off.

She stormed in. “Lord Rexton, I will not be your object of pity.”

“You will never be pitied by me”—he looked up, grinning—“I find you far too frightening.”

“Be serious.” She slapped onto his desk both the book order and Lady Yarborough's invitation. “You arranged these, didn't you?”

He glanced at the documents. “I told Gordon you could get him the books he needs, faster and at a better price than Marshall's, where he's taken his trade recently. Isn't that true?” He arched a dark golden brow at her. “Or are you perhaps not up to the challenge?”

“Of course I am!” she answered hotly. “Marshall senior is in his dotage, and his son is an idiot. I can do far better for Lord Gordon.”

“Good, that's what I thought as well. See you don't prove me wrong.” He returned his attention to his papers.

She refused to be put off so easily. “And your sister's invitation?”

The leather of his chair creaked as he leaned back and steepled his fingers under an amused gaze. “Not everything is about you, my dear. A little humility might serve you well.”

“Whatever are you talking about? You're the peacock around here.” Despite her annoyance at his interference in her affairs, she was aware of a thrumming undercurrent of pleasure in sparring with him. A month ago, she wouldn't have dared tease him, but after they'd spoken so frankly coming home from the British Museum last week, somehow enough trust had grown to allow for such banter. It was a new game for her, one she'd never played with any man. Their jesting surprised her with its delights. At the same time, to her shame, she'd begun to fear there were other, deeper games she'd be unable to resist playing with him, should the opportunity arise. To distract herself from
those
forbidden thoughts, she tossed another volley: “Is it true, for example, what the gossips say, that you curl those long lashes of yours?”

He rolled his eyes. “I'm sorry to inform you Lady Mildred is the one whose attendance is desired. As I understand it, you are merely the escort.”

“My great-aunt? What trick is up your sleeve now?” This was more serious. “I'll not have you toying with her simply because you've managed to twist her around your little finger, like all the ladies of your acquaintance.”

“Ah, there I'm afraid you'll have to take your fearsome attack to my uncle George. He's apparently the one who requested Lady Mildred be invited to Jane's musicale. He's staying with my sister in Belgrave Square, arrived at her town house just yesterday. With my mother coming back next week as well, it's going to be quite the family reunion.”

“What is your family up to?” She frowned suspiciously.

“In Sir George's case, I have no idea,” he said, spreading his hands. “Usually he visits us at my country seat. As far as I know, he hasn't been to the city in over a decade. He wrote to Jane last week that he had a desire to visit London and wanted to stop in with her. You tell me why he wants Lady Mildred invited to Belgrave Square; I wasn't even aware they were acquainted.”

“How odd.” Callista dropped into the chair in front of his desk. “My great-aunt was somewhat friendly with your mother, of course. She's also mentioned she knew Sir George, as your mother's older brother. I think they were all generally acquainted when they were much younger. But it's such a long time ago that I can't imagine why Sir George would seek to renew any of these relations now.”

“Well, I think you owe it to him to show up at the musicale and bring your great-aunt along. He's the one who insisted I hire you, you know.”

He looked so innocent she was inclined to believe he was uninvolved in the invitation. But she didn't want to let him off the hook so easily or abandon the intimate enjoyment of their easy repartee. She leaned forward to examine the sprawl of handwritten pages on his desk. “What are you working on, anyway? Graves told me you were doing estate business.”

He gathered in his foolscap sheets as a blush began to stain his cheeks. “Nothing in particular.”

As she saw he had volumes of the philosophers Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and Kant open across the desk, his answer seemed unlikely indeed.

“You're writing an essay, aren't you?” she guessed. “Why would you hide it?” The notion was bizarre to her. “There is nothing shameful about philosophy.”

“I'm not hiding anything,” he protested, scrambling to put away his papers. “These are just some scribbles, that's all.”

“Why don't you show your writing to members of the Philosophical Society?” she said, ignoring his denials. “What about your young protégé Mr. Thompson? You're very keen on him; the two of you are always talking together at the luncheons. I'm sure he'd appreciate you sharing your ‘scribbles' with him.”

His mouth tightened in silence. She pulled back to more neutral ground and rose to inspect the new shelving. This point about his uncle was one she'd never understood. “Did Sir George insist on my hire simply because my father supplied him with many of his books?” she asked over her shoulder as she ran her hand over the smooth raw wood.

“Again, I have no idea.” Gentleman—or predator—that he was, Dominick stood and paced over to join her. His features relaxed and his habitual half smile returned as they left behind both the topic and location of his writing. “I wasn't inclined to argue about the stipulation when he offered me his collection.” He leaned one broad shoulder against the aromatic wood and took her hands in his.

It seemed a fascination of his, this desire to touch and hold her hands, to play with her fingers. Or perhaps he was only trying to distract her from further questions about his writing. She only knew that when he lifted both her hands to his mouth, rubbed his velvet lips across their backs, and flashed her a grin paired with that dark smoldering gaze, she prayed God he'd keep in the habit. His breath was warm—hot—as he purred, “You came well recommended enough, eccentric bluestocking though you are.”

It was a bit of revenge perhaps, as he teased her now, and it was her turn to feel the words hit home. She'd had a commission returned just this week from a former dealer, with a note saying he could no longer be in trade with her. And she'd been cut in Piccadilly only yesterday by the wife of a baronet whom her father had long supplied. The lady, one of the curious throng at Professor Jamieson's lecture, had ignored Callista's polite greeting and lifted her nose instead.