My Surrender (12 page)

What a spectacle they’d provided! What entertainment! How could she have failed to notice? Had Dand? Had his husky plea for mercy been more playacting? His body’s reaction nothing more than that: a physical reaction to physical stimulus?

“I trust my performance passed muster this time?” she asked, somehow managing a light, cavalier tone.

That brought his head around. “Performance.”

“Yes. Certainly our audience appreciated it.” Her hand flashed out in an encompassing gesture toward the other carriages. He looked around, his expression unmoved and uninterested. Of course, he had known they were there. Of course.

“I thought I did exceedingly well,” she went on in a hard, bright voice. “Indeed, I insist you apologize to my former tutors in the amorous arts.”

“Well?” Why must she insist on hearing him confirm her suspicion and why did her voice choose that instant to quaver? She swallowed, tilted her chin proudly. “Should I count you amongst the enslaved? Why won’t you answer me?”

Rather than speak, he reached out and gently tucked a curl of hair that had come loose behind her ear. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“I told you you’d get a little messy, Lottie,” he said.

Curiously, he watched her flounce up the stairs to the front door, chin high and shoulders square. It didn’t look as though she had any intention of checking her headlong march. Indeed, he doubted she was even aware she was about to collide face first with the door. He winced at the thought and was about to further offend her by shouting for her to mind where she was going when the front door was miraculously snatched open and, without the slightest check in her stride, she sailed through it and disappeared from view.

Curtis, who’d apparently been standing at attention at the front door and had seen his mistress’s arrival—as well as her state—met Dand’s gaze with one of resigned and universal male understanding before quietly closing the door.

Dand snapped the reins lightly across the rumps of the matched pair of gray geldings. He supposed he oughtn’t have teased her so ruthlessly, but she was so deliciously ripe for teasing and he could never quite resist tweaking Miss Charlotte Nash’s nose. Besides, she had been taking her role as Society’s premier heartbreaker entirely too seriously. She went about town acting brazen and hoydenish with an earnestness that was actually quite touching. He smiled.

She was…amazing. An amazing amalgamation of pride and practicality, audacity and modesty, hard-hearted pragmatist and sentimental idealist, woman and girl. Her mouth was as sweet as nectar and her kiss as fiery as red peppercorns, her touch both electrifying and soothing, her sighs yielding and conquering.

His smile dissolved.

Now, just what the hell was he going to do about it?

Partridge Hall, St. James Square
July 22, 1806

“O
H, SHE IS SURELY RUINED BEYOND REPAIR!”
The countess Juliette Kettle intoned as she popped a morsel of pickled pork belly into her mouth. Her dining companion on her right, Lord Beau Winkel, puckered his brow unhappily. He rather liked Charlotte Nash. She was damn good company as well as a fetching little article.

On his right the Baroness Welton leaned over her plate and glowered across him at the countess. “I shouldn’t be the least surprised if there wasn’t an announcement in the
Times
within the week.”

“La!” The countess sucked a bit of grease off her fingertip. “A bit late in the game for that, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps for some,” Lady Welton said frostily, her plump cheeks pink, “But for the Marquis of Cottrell’s sister, exceptions would doubtless be made by all but the most stiff-rumped prigs or those without any aspirations to move in the very best of circles.”

As a returning salvo, it was a definite success. The countess was a well-known and rabid social climber, ambitious to join those in Society who had hitherto withheld their invitations from her. “There are some things which cannot be overcome because one is fortunate in one’s associations,” the countess returned stiffly.

“Love can overcome a great deal, Countess,” Lady Welton said.

“Love?” This came from the dining companion sitting opposite Lady Welton, an immaculately turned out sprig of the ton by the name of Rawsett, a recent and late arrival to the season’s festivities, having just finished a prolonged tour of the Americas.

Lady Welton regarded him coolly. “Certainly you have heard the word, young man?”

The little cockscomb bit back a superior smile. “On more occasions than I care to recall, my dear lady. I am just surprised that you would use the term to describe the goings-on between Miss Nash and her…admirer.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mrs. Hal Verson, seated on Rawsett’s left said wistfully, a faraway look in her pansy brown eyes. “Have you seen them together? I did. At the lending library Wednesday. The manner in which he looks at her…It takes one’s breath away. And she, when he does not note it, watches him with a sort of bittersweet anguish.”

“Does she?” Rawsett mused. “And here her reputation insists she does not own the sort of tender sentiment one associates with young ladies of her breeding.”

“Her reputation is well earned.” The words fell like stones into the conversation. It was Lord Bylespot, who’d once made suggestions to Charlotte Nash that she’d forcefully—and painfully—refuted and was now forced to witness her accept from another man. At twenty-eight his blond good looks were already much damaged by drink. He stared sullenly down at his plate and without another word, tossed back the entire contents of his wineglass. “And whatever notoriety she earns with this latest escapade will be just as well deserved.”

The other diners traded uncomfortable glances. Lord Bylespot had a nasty tongue and a grudging nature. More importantly, on occasion, he had been known to gain the prince’s ear. If he decided that Charlotte Nash was beyond the pale…Well, she had best gather those sympathetic to her if she hoped to weather the current straits into which she’d flung herself.

Culholland Square, Mayfair
July 24, 1806

“And, lest you think this is the end of it, I give you fair warning that your queen is about to follow your cleric to his untimely end,” Charlotte crowed. She had nestled herself into the corner of the settee she shared with Dand, her legs stretched out and her feet on his lap. She folded forward at the waist and with a jaunty flick of her hand, tipped over Dand’s white bishop.

From the other end of the settee, Dand frowned down at the chessboard laid out on the small table between them, his long fingers carelessly kneading Charlotte’s tender left foot.

“For a chit who pleaded with me to rub her feet because they hurt from all her cavorting about on the dance floor the previous evening, you are not very gracious in your triumph,” he remarked, studying the board.

In reply she crept her right foot up the hard plane of Dand’s belly, trying to dig her toes into his stomach. It was like trying to dig them into flagstone.

“Stop that,” he said distractedly, swatting away her foot.

She started to reply, but he pressed the heel of his hand into the arch of her foot, massaging deeply, and all she could manage was a purr. Meeting his original challenge that she learn to accept his touch without startling or blushing had proven an easy task to accomplish, she mused in a haze of enjoyment. Perhaps, too easy?

It had been eight days since Ginny’s accident and five since Dand had taken up residence in the back bedroom. With each passing day she found herself seeking out those light touches and soft caresses he employed with such devastating effect. Caresses, she reminded herself, that he performed for public entertainment. She mustn’t forget that they were an act and not real.

If only she could say the same of her own reaction. But she couldn’t. She knew full well the disastrous manner in which her heart accelerated in anticipation of his lingering glance, the gentle stroke of his finger on the inside of her wrist, or the heart-stopping instances when he brushed the curls back from her brow as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“You think me undone,” he said, his gaze narrowing on the board. “You think you have unmanned me.”

“Unwomaned you, actually,” she corrected.

His gaze flashed up to hers for an instance and then, with a grin she could not help but answer, he returned to his contemplation of the board. And
that
was another problem; perhaps a greater one. The more time she spent in his company, the more time she wanted with him.

Even when they weren’t in public and he wasn’t watching her with that loverlike intensity—lover-
like,
she must keep reminding herself—he still excited her, challenged her, provoked and amused her. She looked forward to these moments when they were alone, out of sight of their audience, closeted together. Sometimes when he looked at her then, she saw something more in his considering gaze than irony or amusement. Something he went to pains to hide. But he couldn’t. Not entirely. She’d seen the same look in too many men’s eyes not to know what it was. Desire.

No man’s ardor had ever frightened her before. But Dand Ross’s unvoiced and unacknowledged desire did. And not in an entirely unpleasant way. It was electrifying. If Charlotte had learned one thing in her short life, it was to enjoy the moment, because the next might hold something far from pleasant. A father might die or a mother, a sibling might send one to live amongst strangers, and one’s future might depend on one’s ability to please strangers…

She embraced that doctrine now, creeping her foot lower down on his stomach. At once she felt the muscle contract beneath the arch of her foot. A muscle shivered above his upper lip, but other than that he gave no sign that he felt anything. Tentatively, she rubbed her heel against the rough wool of his trousers, low on his belly.

His gaze shot up to meet hers, a warning in their dark depth. Her breath stopped. “Watch out, Charlotte. Even a dog on a chain will choke itself to get at the bait if it’s tempting enough.”

“Well, I daresay it’s a good thing he’s been chained, then,” she said, little alarms going off in her mind, alarms that she chose to ignore. “In order to prevent any such attacks.”

“Sometimes chains break,” he said in a low voice, his gaze holding hers.

“It’s luck we’re just playacting, isn’t it?” she asked and waited breathlessly for his answer.

He didn’t answer.

“Isn’t it?” she insisted.

In answer he only smiled and reached down, removing her foot from his lap and casually repositioning a rook on the chessboard.

He was teasing her. Well, she could do
that,
too. Leaning back in her chair, she raised her arms overhead, stretching extravagantly. “Give up, Dand,” she purred.

“Never,” he answered, his eyes trained on the field of battle. “You see, you have underestimated the lengths I might go to in order to protect my lady.”

He picked up his knight and pondered a few seconds before dangling it above a black square. If he took that move, his knight would be aligned in such a manner that she could not capture his queen, as had been her intent. But the move also opened his last remaining bishop to annihilation by her pawn and placed his king in jeopardy.

“A bold move.”

“But perhaps necessary.” His lazy gaze rose, trapping hers. His voice had softened to no more than a murmur. “I must ask myself what am I willing to do to see her secure and how many men I am willing to lose in the process. And finally, ultimately, how will my choice effect the outcome of the game?”

He rolled the knight between his fingers, tilting his head and regarding her searchingly. “Tell me, Lottie. What do you think? Should I abandon my darling girl, or should I play the smart game and let her be sacrificed?”

Something in his voice made her shiver, something in his regard grew dark and alien.

“I don’t know either,” he whispered and at that moment the sound of footsteps in the hallway outside broke the odd moment.

At once, he reached down the length of the settee, grabbed her by the waist and pulled her into his lap. Just as quickly, she put her arms around his neck, mussing his hair as if they had spent hours in a prolonged and impassioned embrace. The door swung open and Ginny tottered in on her crutches, Curtis hovering behind her.

“Why, Mrs. Mulgrew, what a surprise,” Dand said, making no move to release Charlotte.

“A chair, if you please!” Ginny barked, with a sharp gesture that sent the footman scurrying in, pulling out a chair, and waiting while she teetered over and sank down as gracefully as her splinted limb would allow.

Ginny waited until Curtis had retired from the room, before turning her gaze upon them and seeing them still so entangled, rolled her eyes in open exasperation.

“I could hear you two mumbling about queens and bishops halfway down the hall, so
do
dispense with the torrid embrace. I am unimpressed,” she said coolly.
“And
unconvinced.”

Charlotte squirmed. Dand held her tight.

“I think you could let me go now,” she said.

“Good heavens, Charlotte, did you not just hear Mrs. Mulgrew? We are unconvincing in the role of lovers. We must strive to remedy that, for practice, so they say, makes perfect,” he said, negligently caressing the downy skin on the nape of her neck. “Besides, I like you on my lap. In my arms.”

She wished he hadn’t said that. Because she believed him. And she really wished he wouldn’t do that. It was hard to think when she wanted to lie back in his broad arms and let him do all the wicked things she had hitherto only sampled. Things she imagined late at night when all the formidable barricades she erected to keep reality and playacting separated fell apart for those few minutes before sleep overtook her only to be carefully reconstructed upon waking the next day.

“Apparently you require more than ‘practice,’ ” Ginny said coldly.

Her words caught Charlotte by surprise.

As far as she could tell, their plan was going well. Why, already the invitations usually overflowing the hall table had been cut in half, a clear sign that her notoriety was well on its way to being established. Soon no one would want her at their home. Such success! she thought wryly. Who could ask for more?

Ginny should be beaming, not snapping at them.

Dand idly rubbed between her shoulder blades, his cheek burnishing the curls at the crown of her head. A seemingly tender gesture that had a not-so-innocent effect on her, stoking the warm sensations their earlier wordplay had aroused into a hotter fire. Any moment now and she would be purring. Her head would fall into the lee of his neck and shoulder and she would will him to look down at her as she lifted—

“Mrs. Mulgrew seems overset,” Dand whispered into her hair and then, to Ginny, “Should you be up?”

“I am leaving this afternoon,” Ginny intoned brusquely.

“Surely that is not wise,” Charlotte said, rousing herself from the cloud of pleasure-spiked lassitude into which she’d sunk. “You are still weak and you might yet be taken with a fever. I cannot afford—”

“You cannot
afford
to have me here, acting like some sort of farcical doyenne,” Ginny cut in coldly. “People may take it into their idiotic pates that I am playing the part of chaperone. Yes, yes, I know it is absurd, but the public
is
absurd especially when it comes to slandering those whom it wants to extol, or”—she paused tellingly—“the sister-in-law of those whom they fear. And you, my dear Charlotte, are both. And you are not helping the matters what with the way you treat Ross.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Clearly,” Ginny said, sniffing. “What are all these blushes and sidelong glances I hear tell so much about from the servants in this house and my acquaintances outside? You are supposed to be a woman in
lust,
not love!”

“And you,” she glared at Dand, “had best stop acting the lovesick swain and start acting like an overly possessive lover. My God, man! You said you must return to France and soon. In that time you must cement in Society’s imagination your uncontested right to Charlotte’s time and then effect a very public, very dramatic break with her.”

Dand regarded her. “You have been pulling the strings in this little puppetry show thus far, Mrs. Mulgrew and we have obliged.
I
have obliged. I should be careful, however, that you don’t get caught in your own devices.”

Though his expression was amiable enough, a threat lurked in his level gaze that gave Charlotte pause. Once more, Charlotte found herself wondering just what Dand Ross was capable of doing in pursuit of his goal. She suspected it was more than she realized. Worse, rather than cause her to withdraw, his untapped capacity for danger only made him more fascinating. Ginny visibly tensed. “I know what I am about. I thought you did, too.” She turned back to Charlotte. “Or did you forget?”