Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake (18 page)

“Not as lucky as I shall be,” Oxford said, his gaze not straying from Ralston.

Before Callie could wonder at the strange emphasis, the theatre chimes rang, signaling the end of intermission. Oxford took his leave, first bowing low over Callie’s hand, and saying, “Good evening, my lady. I shall look forward to next week.”

“And I, Baron Oxford,” she replied with a little curtsy.

He then turned a broad grin on a stone-faced Ralston. “Good night, old chap.”

Ralston did not reply, instead staring down the young dandy, who laughed off the cut direct and tipped his cane at the marquess before leaving the box. Callie watched him go before saying. “You didn’t have to be so very rude to him.”

“He’s got nothing in his head but teeth,” he said, matter-of-factly.

Ignoring the fact that she had said the exact words only days ago, Callie ignored his and resumed her seat. When Ralston took his place next to her, she ignored him, instead looking resolutely at the stage, willing the curtain to rise.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the arrival of a footman with a silver tray, upon which was a folded message. Ralston took the proffered note with a nod of thanks for the messenger and turned the sealed parchment over in his hand, sliding a finger under the wax to open it.

Callie couldn’t stop herself from peeking at the page as he looked at it. It was a short missive, only visible for a flash before he folded it closed. But Callie could not have missed the message—or its meaning.

Callie choked back a gasp, turning sharply away and pretending to be completely absorbed by the performance, which had just begun.

Her mind reeled. She shouldn’t be surprised, of course. She should not be thinking of the other evening—of the betrothal ball, of their embrace in his carriage. She should not be wondering why, if he was involved with Nastasia, he had thought to kiss her.

But, of course, she did wonder.

And what of his sister? Surely he wouldn’t accept the invitation. Not tonight, of all nights. It was Juliana’s first night in society!

Sadness and outrage warred within her for the first two scenes of the second act. When, at the start of the third scene, he stood and abruptly left the box, outrage won.

No. She would not allow him to ruin his sister’s first night out. Not after all that Juliana had done to ensure its success. Not after all that Callie had done to ensure its success. Not to mention the others, who had also cast their support for his sister.

How dare he risk it all? And for what?

Her anger rose. She squared her shoulders. Someone had to think of Juliana.

Turning to Benedick, she whispered, “The champagne appears to have gone to my head. I am going to rest in the ladies’ salon.”

Her brother leaned forward, taking note of Ralston’s disappearance. Meeting her eyes, he said quietly, “No adventures, Callie.”

She forced a smile. “No adventures.”

And she left the box.

Hurrying along the dimly lit hallways of the theatre, her mind raced, wondering if she would find Ralston before he destroyed Juliana’s chances at success. Callie would wager Allendale House itself that he’d escaped to meet his paramour in this very theatre more than once in the past—he likely knew the shortest path to Miss Kritikos’s dressing room. She could not help the little exclamation of disgust that came with the thought.

She tore around a corner into the upper colonnade to find Ralston heading for the wide, grand staircase. A glance around revealed the space empty of people, and Callie could not resist calling out to him, “Ralston! Stop!”

He froze on the top stair, casting a disbelieving look at the arcade, where she was hurrying to catch him. Once he registered her purpose, his obvious disbelief turned to fury, and he retraced his steps until he was face-to-face with her.

Before she had a chance to speak, he grabbed her arm and pulled her into a darkened corridor. Voice filled with anger, he whispered, “Are you mad?”

Breathing heavily with both exertion and irritation, she yanked her arm from his grasp, and whispered back, “I could ask you the very same thing!”

He ignored her words, “What are you doing out here? If you were discovered—”

“Oh, please,” she cut him off. “It is a public theatre. What do you think would happen if I were discovered? Someone would point me in the direction of the ladies’ salon, and I would be on my way. But what if you were discovered?”

He looked at her as though she were crazed. “What are you talking about?”

“You aren’t the most discreet, Lord Ralston,” she spat his name. “For someone who is so very concerned about his sister’s reputation, one would think you would have more care with it.” She poked his shoulder with a single, gloved finger. “I saw the note! I know you are off to meet your…your…”

“My?” he prompted.

“Your—your mistress!” With each word, she poked him harder.

He grabbed her finger on the last word and flung it away from him. His blue eyes flashed dangerously. “You dare to chide me? You dare to question my behavior? Who do you think you are?”

“I’m the woman you chose to guide your sister into society. I will not have you ruin her chances for one night of…”

“You will not have me? Was it not you who was flirting shamelessly with a drunken dandy in full view of the entire ton?”

Her mouth fell open. “I most certainly did not!”

“Well that is how it appeared, my lady.”

“How dare you!” she said, furious, “How dare you speak to me about shameless flirting! I was not the one making eyes at an actress while she was in the midst of a performance!”

“That’s enough,” he said, his tone barely even.

“No. I don’t think it is!” Callie pressed on, unable to control herself. The floodgates had opened. “I am not the one rushing off to tryst with my…painted paramour…while my sister faces the most difficult challenge of her life! Have you any idea what the ton will do to her if you are discovered, you insensitive…beast!” The last word was shrill.

His eyes shuttered as his face turned to stone. Fists clenched at his sides, he spoke, and his tone betrayed his barely leashed temper. “If you are quite through, Lady Calpurnia, I believe this conversation is over. I find I no longer require your assistance with my sister.”

“I beg your pardon?” she was outraged.

“It’s quite simple, really. I don’t want her near you. You are too much of a risk.”

Her eyes widened in shock. “I, a risk?” she replied, her voice was shaking with fury. “Oh, I shall see your sister, my lord. I won’t see her chances ruined. And, furthermore”—she held a single finger up to his nose—“I will not be told what to do by a notorious—and now proven—rake and libertine.”

He lost his temper then, capturing her hand, wagging finger and all, in his own and using it to pull her flush against him. “If I am to be labeled as such, I may as well stop resisting the part.” And, with that, he kissed her.

She fought him, wriggling under the strength of his kiss, but no matter which direction she turned, he was there, all strong arms and firm muscle and hard, unyielding mouth. Her fists pounded on his shoulders fleetingly before he grasped her waist with both hands and lifted her from the ground—leaving her with no choice but to cling to him as he pressed her against the wall. She gasped in surprise at the sudden movement, and he took the opportunity to plunder her mouth, both hands cupping her face, stealing her breath.

She matched his movements with lips and tongue and teeth, refusing to allow him the upper hand, even in this. Stroke for stroke, where he went, she followed. He captured her sighs with his mouth; she reveled in his low hum of pleasure. After several intense moments of the sensual battle, his lips gentled, caressing hers as his tongue stroked along the soft, sensitive skin of her lower lip, ending the kiss infinitely more gently than it had begun.

The caress wrung a little cry from Callie, and Ralston smiled at the sound, pressing a final, soft kiss at the corner of her mouth. He pulled back a fraction of an inch, and their gazes collided. There was no sound in the hallway save their labored breathing—reminding them both of the intensity of the argument that had preceded the kiss.

He raised a single dark eyebrow in a silent, victorious gesture.

The arrogant expression renewed her fury.

Pulling herself up to her full height, she said, “I am not one of your women, to be mauled in public. You would do well to remember that.”

“Forgive me,” he said, mockingly, “but you did not seem so very opposed to playing the role.”

She could not help herself. Her hand flew of its own volition, in a direct line for his cheek. Even as she moved to slap him, she dreaded the blow, unable to stop the motion. When he caught her hand in a viselike grip, mere inches from his face, she gasped in surprise, meeting his eyes and immediately recognizing the anger in them.

She had overstepped her bounds. Dear Lord. She’d tried to strike him. What had possessed her? She struggled to free her hand, only to discover his hold was thoroughly unyielding.

“I—I’m sorry.”

He narrowed his gaze but remained silent.

“I shouldn’t have…”

“But you did.”

She paused. “But, I didn’t mean to.”

He shook his head, dropping her hand and taking a moment to straighten his coat. “One cannot have one’s cake and eat it, too, Lady Calpurnia. If you plan to make a habit of acting without care of the consequences, I would recommend taking ownership of those actions. You meant to strike me. At least have the courage to admit it.” He paused, waiting for her to respond. When she didn’t, he shook his head. “Amazing. I hadn’t thought you a coward.”

His words sent an angry wash of color across her cheeks. “Stay away from me,” she said, voice shaking with emotion, before she spun away from him, fleeing in the direction of the lit foyer and Rivington’s box.

Ralston watched her go, his expression betraying none of his thoughts.

I knew you would come.”

The words, spoken with soft sensuality, reeked of a feminine arrogance that immediately set Ralston on edge. He remained casually draped over a chintz-upholstered armchair in Nastasia Kritikos’s dressing room, refusing to allow her to see his irritation. He had spent enough time around the woman to know that she would take particular satisfaction in her ability to provoke him.

Ralston cast a heavy-lidded gaze over her as she moved to her dressing table and began to take down her hair in a ritual he had watched dozens of times before. He took her in: her breasts, heaving from the exertion of singing for nearly three hours straight; the heightened color on her cheeks marking her exhilaration at her performance; her bright eyes signaling her anticipation for the next part of the evening, which she clearly believed would be spent in his arms. He had seen this exact combination of heightened emotion in the beautiful singer before—it had never failed to raise his own excitement to a fever pitch.

Tonight, however, he was unmoved.

He had debated leaving her note unanswered, considered remaining in the box until the end of the performance and exiting with his family, as planned. Ultimately, however, the note had served to underscore the fact that the opera singer was unable to be discreet. He was going to have to articulate their new relationship more explicitly.

He supposed he should have known that she would not be cast aside so easily, should have seen that her pride would not allow it. That much was clear now.

“I came to tell you that tonight’s note will be the last.”

“I do not think so,” she purred, as the last of her ebony tresses fell around her shoulders in a cloud of silk. “You see, it worked.”

“It won’t work next time.” His cold blue gaze emphasized the truth of his words.

Nastasia considered his reflection in the mirror as a silent maid moved to remove the elaborate costume the singer had been wearing. “If you did not come for me tonight, Ralston, why are you here? You loathe the opera, my darling. And yet, your eyes did not leave the stage tonight.”

For all she declared herself an artist, Nastasia was always acutely aware of her audience. He’d often admired her ability to recall the precise location of certain members of the ton in the theatre—she had a gossiper’s eye for who was watching whom through their opera glasses, for who exited the theatre midperformance with whom, and for what excitement and drama was occurring in which box, and when. He was not surprised she had noticed him and sent the note.

The Greek beauty pulled on a scarlet dressing gown and dismissed the servant curtly. Once they were alone, she turned to Ralston, her dark eyes flashing beneath kohl-thickened lashes, her lips curved in a crimson pout.

Your painted paramour…

Callie’s words came unbidden to Ralston as he watched Nastasia stalk toward him, so sure of the power of her feminine wiles, so calculated in her approach. His eyes narrowed as she shifted her shoulders and arched her neck to show off the ridge of her collarbone, a spot that was so often his weakness. He felt nothing but distaste, keenly aware that Nastasia was like a plaster copy of one of Nick’s statues—lovely, but lacking the substance that turned mere loveliness into true beauty.

When she stopped in front of him, bending over to reveal her ample bosom in a move calculated to send him over the edge, he met her cool, confident gaze and spoke, his words dry as sand.

“While I appreciate the effort, Nastasia, I am no longer interested.”

A patronizing smile crossed the opera singer’s face. She reached out to stroke his jaw with expert fingers; he resisted the urge to flinch. “I am happy to play this game of cat and mouse, my darling, but you must admit you haven’t given me much of a challenge. After all, you are in my dressing room.”

“Find someone else, Nastasia.”

“I do not want someone else,” she crooned, opening the belt of her dressing gown and leaning forward to give him full access to her breasts, barely contained by the too-tight corset she wore. Her voice became a sultry whisper. “I want you.”

He met her brazen gaze, unimpressed. “Then it seems we find ourselves at an impasse. I am afraid I don’t want you.”

Anger flashed in her eyes, so quickly that he realized she had been prepared for his rebuff. She shot past the chair, storming to her dressing table, scarlet silk swirling behind her in a dramatic fury. Ralston rolled his eyes before she turned back and pinned him with a searing look. When she spoke, her voice was riddled with disdain. “It is because of her, isn’t it? The girl in the Rivington box.”

His tone iced. “That girl is my sister, Nastasia, and I won’t have you ruin her coming out.”

“You think I would not know your sister, Ralston? I recognized her immediately, all dark hair and gorgeous eyes; a beauty—just as you are. No, I am talking about the wallflower. The woman seated next to you. The one with the plain hair and the plain eyes and the plain face. She must be very rich, Ralston, because you cannot possibly want her for anything else,” she ended with a smug smile.

He refused to rise to her bait, instead drawling, “Jealous, Nastasia?”

“Of course not,” she scoffed. “She is no match for me.”

A vision of Callie came unbidden, all heated words and angry looks and heightened emotion. Callie, who couldn’t coolly calculate if she were given a decade of lessons. Callie, who had chased him down in a public theatre, for God’s sake, without a care in the world for how it might be perceived, simply to serve him a scathing set down. Callie, who was so very alive and changing and unpredictable—and so very much the opposite of the cold and untouchable Nastasia.

One side of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. “There you are right. There is no comparison between you.”

Her eyes widened as understanding dawned. “You cannot be serious,” she said on a half laugh. “You would turn to…that…mouse?”

“That mouse is a lady, Nastasia,” he hedged, “sister to an earl. You will refer to her with respect.”

Her lips twisted in a wry smile. “Of course, my lord. What I meant to say was, you want that lady warming your bed? When you could have me? When you could have this?” She indicated her luscious body with a bold sweep of her hand.

His tone flattened. “It seems you need clarity on the matter of our arrangement. So let me provide it. It is over. You will cease attempting to contact me.”

She pouted. “You would leave me with a broken heart?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I feel confident that your heart shall not remain broken for long.”

She held his unreadable gaze for a long moment—her long history as mistress to aristocratic men telling her that Ralston was lost to her. He watched the realization come, saw, too, the calculations she ran as she considered her next step. She could war with him, but she knew that society’s opinion would always err on the side of a wealthy marquess when a foreign actress was involved.

She smiled. “My heart is ever resilient, Ralston.”

He tipped his head, acknowledging her surrender.

“You know, of course, that a girl like that knows nothing of the world in which you and I live.”

He could not resist. “What does that mean?”

“Only that she will want love, Ralston. Girls like her always do.”

“I have little interest in whatever fairy tales the girl believes in, Nastasia. She is nothing to me but a chaperone to my sister.”

“Perhaps,” Nastasia said thoughtfully. “But what are you to her?” When he did not respond, one side of her mouth curved in a wry smile. “You forget that the best seat in the theatre is mine.”

Ralston stood from his chair, making a production of straightening his cravat and smoothing his sleeves before gathering his hat, gloves, and greatcoat from the chaise where he had tossed them upon entering the room. He withdrew Nastasia’s note and set it on the dressing table before turning back to the singer. Bowing low, he took his leave.

And he did it all without saying a word.