Something Sinful (18 page)

Sarala plunked herself down at her dressing table and looked into the mirror. “Idiot,” she muttered at the young woman facing her. Kissing Shay Griffin was the most nonsensical thing she’d ever done. Or the second most, rather.

And she thought that she’d learned her lesson where men were concerned. Obviously not.

A knock came at her door. “I’m busy,” she said, folding her arms and burying her head into them.

“My lady, a gentleman is here, and your parents request your presence,” Jenny’s voice came.

She lifted her head again. “A gentleman?” It couldn’t be Shay; Jenny knew who he was. And Melbourne had set an appointment for tomorrow, so she couldn’t imagine he would stop by to chat.

“I didn’t catch a name, my lady, but your father seemed to know him well. Will you come down?”

“I’ll be there in a moment.” She walked to her window. A curricle waited on the short drive. No coat of arms identified it, and she didn’t recognize the horse. It could be anyone, she supposed, since her father’s acquaintances through Parliament were innumerably greater than hers. At least her mother couldn’t set her after whichever poor fellow it was; she had recently become betrothed.

With a deep breath, trying to gather her scattered thoughts so she could at least carry on a civilized conversation, she went downstairs and pushed open the drawing room door.

“Sarah!” her mother exclaimed from her seat by the window. “Look who’s found us in London!”

The light-haired, broad-shouldered man in front of the fireplace turned to face her. “Since I last saw you, everything’s changed but your beauty,” he drawled in his low, familiar voice, and smiled.

Her mouth gaped open for several heartbeats before she realized and closed her lips again. “Viscount DeLayne,” she stammered, in another few seconds recovering herself enough to manage a stiff curtsy.

The marchioness sighed. “He is an old friend, Sarah. Don’t act as if you’ve never seen him before.”

“Please excuse her this time, my lady.
Sarah,
” and he emphasized the pronunciation, probably to show that he meant to follow the new convention, “has evidently forgotten we are such old friends that she used to call me John.”

“John was just saying he’d been in Sussex and actually read of our presence here in a newspaper,” her father supplied, handing their guest a glass of claret.

“Yes. It said you were here and enjoying the best of Society in the company of the illustrious Duke of Melbourne and the Griffin family. So of course I had to come and find you.” The viscount smiled again. “I can hardly believe it’s been over two years since we all last saw one another.”

“You must stay for dinner,” Lady Hanover stated, picking up the bell at her elbow and shaking it.

“I couldn’t impose.”

“Nonsense. You’re practically family.”

The butler slipped into the room. “You rang, my lady?”

“Yes. Tell Cook there will be one more for dinner.”

“Right away, my lady.”

“Where are you staying in London?” Sarala asked, wishing her heart would stop beating so hard and let her concentrate. As it was, she was half certain everyone in the room could hear it pounding. Why was he here? And why now? Just when she’d thought matters couldn’t become more tangled.

Fellow former resident of Delhi or not, as far as she was concerned, John DeLayne wasn’t welcome. She had much more pressing matters to deal with without his old ambitious sycophancy.
She’d
realized the truth of his character, even if her parents hadn’t.

Back then, the viscount had outranked her father, though without the burden of estates or her uncle’s debts, the Carlisles’ financial situation had been considerably better than his. In addition, her father’s high position with the East India Company had made gaining his friendship very lucrative.

“My cousin William Adamsen has a house here. He’s invited me to stay with him for as long as I like.”

“That is good news,” her father returned. “Don’t you think so, Sarah?”

She shook herself. “Yes. Of course. It will be nice to know there’s a familiar face close by,” she said, because everyone would expect her to say something. Clearing her throat, she edged toward the door. “I beg your pardon, but I’m not feeling quite the thing this afternoon. Will you excuse me?”

“Nonsense, Sarah. You should tell Lord DeLayne your good news.”

“No, Mama,” she countered quickly, then forced a smile. “He doesn’t want to hear my news, especially when it’s not certain, yet.”

DeLayne looked from one to the other. “I must say, you’ve whetted my curiosity.”

“Oh, I must tell you,” the marchioness said, clapping her hands together. “Sarah is to marry the Duke of Melbourne’s brother!”

The viscount lifted an eyebrow, brown eyes assessing her. “Indeed?”

“His name is Charlemagne, and nothing’s been decided yet.”

Slowly his mouth curved into a smile. “Congratulations, Sarah. Well done.”

Sarala suppressed a shudder as she bobbed her head at him again and then escaped up to her bedchamber. Now things couldn’t get any worse. She hoped.

“Afterward he did without delay offer to marry her,” Lord Hanover put in.

And two hundred and fifty quid came back out. Oh, good. They were having their own debate, and he didn’t need to participate. He didn’t particularly want to participate. What he wanted to do was go around the table, snatch up Sarala, kiss her until she stopped looking so somber, and get those damned silks.

She’d barely looked at him since her party had arrived twenty minutes earlier, a pair of solicitors in tow. In fact, she looked more shaken and upset than anyone else in the room—with the possible exception of Melbourne. Truthfully, though, the duke didn’t
look
upset as much as he looked ice cold and expressionless. He’d made it perfectly clear yesterday just what he thought of events, and obviously he hadn’t changed his opinion since then.

Their own half-dozen solicitors sat against the wall behind them; Melbourne had no doubt wanted to make clear that he was in charge today. He was always in charge, apparently.

Charlemagne looked at Sarala again, then stood. “If you’ll excuse us, Sarala and I obviously aren’t necessary to these discussions at the moment.” He walked around the table. “Would you care to join me for a stroll in the garden, Sarala?”

“I hardly think that’s seemly, after all this,” Lady Hanover protested, fanning at her face with a sheet of paper, presumably out of shame for his presumption.

“We’ve already ended up betrothed, my lady,” Charlemagne returned in a harder voice than he intended, as he put a hand on Sarala’s shoulder. Her muscles jumped beneath his fingers. He hoped it was from surprise at the gesture rather than from dread or loathing. “Shall we?” he continued, making his tone as light as possible.

“Yes, of course,” she said, rising.

He offered his arm, but either she didn’t notice or she wanted him to think she hadn’t noticed. Moving so quickly out to the hallway that he nearly had to trot to keep up, she led the way to the front door. Stanton pulled it open, and with a whisper of muslin skirts she was out on the front portico.

“Are you going to run all the way home?” he asked, reaching out to pull her to a stop.

“I’m not running,” she returned, shrugging free of his grip. “I’m…not comfortable in there.”

“Neither am I. The garden’s around this way.”

When they’d reached the relative privacy of the rose garden, Charlemagne took the lead, heading to a wooden bench set beneath the low stone wall terrace, an oak tree arching above and behind them. He sat, patting the seat beside him. After a hesitation, Sarala joined him.

“I’m terribly sorry about this,” she blurted, facing him.

“You are? I thought you’d be happy.”

Her face folded into a frown. “Why in the world would I be happy?”

“You’re not ruined.”

“No thanks to you.”

And abruptly the Sarala he knew and was becoming increasingly fond of returned to the party. “Excuse me?” he returned, lifting an eyebrow.

“The more I think about it, in fact, the more I’m convinced that
you
owe
me
an apology. In fact, I withdraw mine.”

“Me? I owe you an apology? For kissing you, I suppose? You practically dared me to do that, Sar—”

“Not the kiss,” she interrupted, her gaze lowering to his mouth. Low heat started in his gut. “That silly story about the Chinese emperor and his swordsmen. It was a tactic unworthy of y—”

“It wasn’t a story,” Charlemagne stated. “And that circumstance hasn’t changed. I want—I need—to get those—”

“Oh, please. What do you take me for, Shay? That was the first—no, the second—time you’ve treated me like an idiot. I thought we were beyond that.”

He’d been set for an argument about who had set whom up for a compromise and subsequent betrothal. The fact that they were back to negotiating both amused and worried him. God, she was as focused as he was.

“I was not lying to you,” he said succinctly. “Nor was I attempting to treat you like an idiot.” He drew a breath. “The newspaper two days ago reported that Captain Peter Blink has gone missing.”

Her tanned cheeks paled. “Captain Blink? Truly?”

He nodded, wishing for a brief moment that Sarala was the sort of chit who fainted or cried at the drop of a hat so he could take charge and comfort her. At the same time, he knew that if that had been her character, he never would have kissed her in the first place—or at least not more than once.

“So,” she went on when he didn’t, “you immediately interpreted a missing ship’s captain to mean that the silks must have been stolen from Emperor Jiaqing and that I must be relieved of them at once for my own safety.”

It was his turn to frown. “Now who’s treating whom like an idiot?”

“Explain, then.”

“I am attempting to. The night after the recital—you remember that?—I walked home. I had the…distinct sensation that I was followed. And that same morning, someone attempted to break into my home.
My
home. Gaston House.”

“And that—”

She was as bad as he was, insisting on proof, accepting hypotheses only as long as they were logical. He wanted to kiss her again, and clenched his fist into his thigh to keep from grabbing her. There would be time for that later. “And then when my niece Peep and I went to the British Museum,” he interrupted, “I
saw
a Chinese soldier watching me. Yesterday morning a rock came through the front window of Griffin House. It had been wrapped in fine silk.”

“So you—”

“Let me finish. I decided that Blink and the silks must be connected, and with a mysterious Chinaman thrown into the mix I rode to Carlisle House to make certain you were unhurt. I took a shortcut through an alleyway, where I was confronted by three Chinese men carrying swords.”

“You…” Her skeptical expression began to fade as she studied his face. “You
are
serious.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
Finally.
“They informed me that they were hunting down the silks that Blink had stolen, that they had Blink, and that the person who now had possession of the silks—which they assumed was me—needed to return them at once.” He left out the part about facing the emperor’s justice—for one thing, it might needlessly frighten her, and for another, he didn’t want her holding on to the damned things out of some misplaced sense of honor.

Her sensuous mouth opened and closed again. “This is rather incredible.”

“I agree. And whatever else goes on today, I still need you to sign those silks over to me. I have a museum appointment at noon to return them.”

“If all this is true, then since I purchased the silks, I should return them.”

He’d been right not to tell her about the second demand. “I admire your sense of honor and fair play, Sarala,” he said, meaning it, “but at the least I would imagine that I’m a better shot than you are. And I have no intention of risking your safety, regardless.”

She hesitated. “If I do sign the silks over to you, if I ask no money in return for giving them to you, will His Grace realize that this was all a misunderstanding? Surely he can find a way to extract us from this…nonsense without damaging my family’s reputation.”

For a long moment Charlemagne looked at her, hearing the sadness and desperation in her voice. The realization of it all hit him full in the face, harsh as a blast of cold north wind. To her, what had happened over the past day was a disaster. As for himself, the events had been surprising, but not horrific. “I agreed to pay you eight thousand pounds for the silks,” he said quietly, finding it more comfortable to keep up at least the pretense that this was business. “There’s no reason to change that.”

“But I’ll
give
them to you if you’ll help me make this go away,” she repeated, tears gathering in her moss green eyes and spilling onto her cheeks. “I’ll apologize to the duke, I’ll let him put a notice in the paper that you were the one who decided to beg off the marriage. Anything, Shay. I—”

“You don’t want to marry me.”

She met his gaze. “No, I don’t.”

Of all the things he hadn’t expected, the fact that he had more interest in this match than she did surprised him most of all. She’d put all her pride into their battle over the silks, and now she was willing to crawl just to be rid of them. Of him. Something was seriously wrong. Sarala had no idea how much he truly enjoyed her company, enjoyed talking with her and arguing with her and just looking at her.

“Why don’t you want to marry me?”

Sarala lifted a fine eyebrow. “You can’t be serious. We were negotiating a business deal. We made a mistake, and kissed when we should have…shaken hands.”

“Firstly,” he muttered, “I don’t make mistakes. Secondly, we couldn’t have shaken hands, because we hadn’t come to an agreement. We
still
haven’t, apparently.”

“You don’t make mistakes? That’s rather arrogant, wouldn’t you say? Especially when you made the mistake of telling me about the silks in the first place.”

The more he thought about it, the more he wondered whether that hadn’t been the wisest thing he’d ever done, Chinese swordsmen or not. “I consider that to be a fortunate slip,” he said instead. Obviously confessing his undying devotion to her would only make her laugh. He wasn’t certain whether that was how he felt or not, anyway. Until a few days ago he’d thought that getting the silks back in a manner that would prove his business acumen keener than hers—and maybe stealing another kiss or two from Sarala—was all that mattered. He cleared his throat. “Sarala, we have several things to deal with,” he said, choosing each word carefully. “The first is that I need to return the silks. That is separate from anything else between us. Name your price, and I will pay it.”

“But—”

“I swear that I will treat the second matter fairly, regardless of the silks, the Chinese, the emperor, or the Duke of Melbourne.”

She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “Thank you so much,” she whispered, another tear running down her face. “Very well. You offered a price of four thousand pounds. I find that to be fair and acceptable.” Squaring her shoulders, she looked him in the eye and held out her hand.

And this time they did shake hands. From begging out of a marriage and back to business, in the space of one heartbeat. He had a great deal to do if she saw no difference between the two. He hoped the Chinese wouldn’t drag him off in chains before he could convince his wife-to-be to want to marry him.