To Charm a Naughty Countess (23 page)

“Oh, I think I do. Or I know what you
don’t
. You did not care for the delicate sensibilities of Miss Weatherby or her mother, who dared take umbrage when you spoke the word
damn
in her presence. Yet you also did not care for Miss Meredith, who was too indelicate for your tastes.” Her hands flexed. “Now you also reject Miss Cartwright, who is a wealthy orphan
and
who likes magic lanterns, and who would dutifully bear you an heir without being horrified by your own passions, nor bestirring them overmuch. And so,” she concluded, sinking onto the bench, “I can only conclude that you covet solitude.”

She looked away from him, for which he was grateful. She had flayed him with her logic. Terrible woman, to turn one of his own favorite weapons against him. And when she stripped from him all other possibilities, shields, armors, the only thing he had left was the naked truth.

“Not solitude,” he said in a voice that was raw and new. “Only the right person.”

He had invested himself in her, and now he had nothing left to give to another. She had bankrupted him, but it was his own fault. He should have remembered to trust only himself.

“Fine, fine.” She splayed her hands in an I-give-up gesture. The movement drew his eye to the slim line of her wrist, the shape of her palm, the spread of her fingers and thumb.

She had run those fingers over the whole length of his body, palming his troubles and flicking them away with her every movement.

Only for a while, though. Only for a short while. She could not know the determination it took to overcome one’s deepest faults or the rigid control used to manage the tensions, worries, burdens of a lifetime.

He had his pride: the pride of a man, and a duke, and a rejected lover. It was a pride of practically infinite dimensions. So he flung himself into its puffery and replied, “In time, I will come to terms with Miss Cartwright. She will benefit materially from the connections she will gain as a peeress. It is a most logical match.”

Caroline’s last speech seemed to have drained her. Rather than having the lushness of a rose in bloom, she was simply a slim blond woman with pretty features and elegant clothing, sitting carefully straight on a bench. No spark in her.

“I am sure you are right,” she said in a colorless voice. “It will be the best of bargains. No compromises, only gain for both parties. I will do what I can to help you, though I do not believe you will require my help much longer.” She smiled faintly. “We have not even used all six days that I thought I might require, have we?”

“I’ve lost count,” Michael said through a throat that seemed crammed with cotton.

“I too.” She sat, silent and still, for a moment, then added, “Miss Cartwright has as much pride as any woman I’ve ever known. Well,
almost
any woman.” Her smile turned wry before vanishing. “I’ll try to smooth her prickles and charm her a bit for you, since I do have that ability left to me, for now.”

Her kindness rasped at him; he disliked the ease with which she turned her gifts to his benefit, to throw him at another woman. He thought about saying,
There’s no need to tie yourself to me any more closely. I can manage this myself.

“Do as you think best,” he said at last. Letting her decide how close, or how far, she wanted him.

“You could survive on very few phrases.” Caroline rose to her feet, smoothing her skirts. “
Do
as
you
think
best
.
I
beg
your
pardon
.
Deuced
cold, isn’t it?
”

“
I
am
accustomed
to
doing
what
I
like
,” Michael shot back.

“That one’s as true for you as it is for me,” Caroline said. “Don’t you think?”

He could only stare at her, stunned. Of
course
he didn’t think that was true. His days were crammed with obligations. His pockets were empty. His house was overrun by strangers. And he would soon need to marry for the sake of everyone in his dukedom, except himself.

But he said none of this, only shook his head.

Caroline watched him for a few endless seconds, and something in her expression seemed to waver. Michael did not know whether it was anger or sorrow or merely exasperation.

Finally, she tilted up her chin with as much hauteur as any duchess, then marched away from him, slipping into the teeming crowds of the street.

“Won’t you join us, Wyverne?” Lord Tallant hefted a billiard mace in one hand and a cue in the other.

The party had returned to Callows in time for dinner; now the guests sought amusement again. Michael hoped the good-tempered earl had more of a knack for billiards than he did for cards. Quite well, he recalled the evening he’d spent at Tallant House, when the earl had been bested at whist less by the Weatherby women than by his own poor memory for cards.

At first, a refusal hovered on Michael’s lips. A sheaf of papers as thick as his fist awaited his attention in his study, and he felt a nagging urge to look through them before he turned in for the night. Caroline’s abrupt departure in Preston had left him in a spin of unsettlement, and he knew from long experience that the best way to calm himself was work. Work to the point of exhaustion.

But then he remembered, as surely as if Caroline had spoken the words in his ear:
you
are
the
host.
He owed the guests his time, especially if he ever wanted the
ton
to trust him again.

And if he played along with this game, perhaps Caroline would hear of it—and then she would know she had judged him too hastily and too harshly.

“Thank you, Tallant,” Michael said. “I believe I will.”

The wood-paneled billiard room was stuffed with male guests, all imbibing either port or tobacco. After neglecting that sacred alcohol-based ritual the previous night, Michael was atoning.

“Your Grace?” A cue waved in Michael’s face. “Will this one work for you?”

Michael offered the cue-giver a creaky smile. “Thank you… Hambleton.”

He must have recalled the man’s name accurately, because the curly-haired dandy colored over his absurdly high shirt points and bobbled back to the side of the billiard table with a series of shallow bows.

Michael swatted the cue into his right palm. Again, Caroline was right: a lofty title plus a leavening of kindness predisposed people to judge him more lightly.

The billiard room was in better order than many others at Callows, for its condition mattered greatly to its purpose. A desk, for example, worked as well whether polished to a high gloss or nicked to high heaven. But a billiard room must be well paneled and insulated, so that temperature and humidity would neither warp the table nor crack the ivories. It must be lit well, too, so a man could make his shot without being confounded by shadows.

The Callows billiard room, Michael realized, was something to be proud of. He knew this because the Londoners were not looking about themselves dubiously, as they had in almost every other room of his house. Instead, they were selecting cues in the deliberate way men used when trying to impress their skill upon their peers.

It was agreed that Hambleton, Tallant, and Everett would play the first game with Michael, while those who didn’t wind up with a cue contented themselves with a bottle of something spirituous instead. The four players began as usual, by stringing for the lead.

When Michael stepped up to the table, he exhaled, squared his shoulders, aimed his cue. Stringing was simple, for it depended only on force, not on angle. All he need do was strike the ball hard enough to roll it to the cushion at the upper end of the table—which it reached, slowly, and settled against. He nodded his satisfaction and straightened.

And was faced with the other three players, looking like the horsemen of the apocalypse. Tallant’s shock warred with his normally pleasant features; Hambleton had gone pale as death. Everett wore a pestilent grin.

“Fine shooting, Your Grace,” he said. “I’ve never seen anyone string up as perfectly as that.”

“Truly?” Michael looked at the cue in his hand, wondering if it had transformed into a snake to shock them all so. But no, it was nothing but a long stick of maple with a leather tip.

Oh. Maybe it was that. “You might find that the leather tips of these cues assist in your aim. They were first used by a Frenchman about a decade ago. I’ve been pleased with the results.”

The three seemed to accept this answer, but they had less luck than Michael. Hambleton’s ball was a foot shy; then Tallant’s shot cracked against Hambleton’s ball and sent it against the side cushion.

The earl peered at his cue, frowning, then shrugged. “Sorry about that,” he said to Hambleton’s storm cloud of a face.

Everett made a nice shot that finished only a few inches away from Michael’s. He turned from the table, his dark face as full of wicked humor as ever. “That’d have been good enough in most games, Your Grace. I’m not sure it’s the cues so much as the players wielding them.”

Michael cleared his throat. “Yes, well, I’ve often heard that it’s not so much the make of a cue as the way it’s used.” This bawdy joke went over with a gratifying amount of raucous laughter. It seemed a male audience liberally plied with spirits was quite ready to be amused.

This was rather a novelty. And rather… rather pleasant.

He realized now what Caroline had tried several times to tell him: that everyday pleasures enriched the business of life.

The other men collected around the table, watching as the game began in earnest. Michael started cautiously, giving up a hazard in order to take the measure of the other players.

They were much as he expected from their first shots. Everett was careful but no expert. He would never humiliate himself with a terrible shot, but he hadn’t the eye for a great one. Hambleton was forceful and had a good mind for the angles, but his temper got in the way of his play, and he was as likely to be dreadful as spectacular. Tallant was a careless player, just as he was at cards. He biffed away at whatever ball was closest to him, whether the ivory cue or one of the red-painted object balls.

Michael’s turn again. Now he knew the other players. He was prepared.

He bent, aimed. His mind mapped the angles needed, a web of lines arrowing over the table. With a dull
thup
of leather against ivory, the cue ball obediently rolled to one red ball, knocked it with a crisp crack, and sent it in a quick carom to the other red ball.

It was all over in a second. Michael stood and looked toward Everett.

The younger man shook his head. “You go again, Your Grace.”

Ah, that was right. Michael rarely played a full game of billiards—with whom would he play?—though he enjoyed the geometric exercise of practicing angles. It relaxed him, freed his mind. Another way of managing the headaches when they began to gnaw.

He realized, as he bent and eyed the length of his cue again, that everyone in the room was staring at him. And he realized too that this didn’t bother him a bit, because there were no continuous variables here. There was nothing to doubt. There was only a ball, a cue, and two targets to hit.

So he hit them again. And again. And again.

But he was the host, and he must not consider only himself. After his fourth successful shot, he looked up to Everett. “We can move on to another inning if you wish.”

“If I wish?” Everett laid his cue against the wood-paneled wall. “No, indeed, Your Grace. I should like to see how long your luck holds.” Tallant seconded this notion.

“It’s not luck,” Michael replied. “It’s geometry.”

Hambleton pulled a face. “It comes to the same thing where I’m concerned.”

“Nonsense,” Michael said. “You’ve a natural eye. Apply geometry, and you will be the master of any table.”

Hambleton looked unconvinced. “Can you demonstrate?”

All around the edges of the table, men bent down as though pulled by a drawstring, following the line of Michael’s cue as he pointed it at the spots of contact on the walls, then laid it flat to show angles.

“Damnation,” breathed a youthful-looking man with a halo of red curls. “I’d have paid more attention in mathematics class when I was up at school if I’d known it would help plump my pockets.”

Michael’s ears pricked. He had never considered using this particular talent to wager his way back to financial health. A brief, riotous vision flooded his mind: sharping his way through London, driving stakes high, gambling his way to fortune and freedom. Persuading a certain woman to his bed…

All impossible, of course, and not only because he had vowed to take no more financial risks.

“Curse me, but I can’t get the feel of it,” Hambleton grumbled. “I understand what you’re saying, Wyverne, but it’s easier said than done.”

“Give it another try,” Tallant said. “It’s not as though we’ve bet money on the game. What have you to lose?”

“Why haven’t we bet?” asked a man named Watkins, who was well into his port and had developed a slight hiccup. “I’ll put twenty quid on the duke to make five more in a row.”

“I’ll take that bet,” said Hambleton.

Puzzling. “You’re betting money on my skill at billiards?”

“To be accurate, Hambleton’s betting against you.” Everett grinned. “But yes. How much faith do you have in your geometry, Wyverne?”

“Five in a row is the bet?” When Watkins and Hambleton nodded, Michael agreed. There was no need for faith, only for observation.

His eyes imagined the spiderweb of bumps and caroms needed, tracked the resolution of the shot back to its origin.

Smack
. He hit the cue ball cleanly, and with a neat
click-clack
, it rolled into one red ball, then the other.

“There’s one,” he said over his shoulder.

Two, three, and four followed just as neatly. As he lined up his cue for the final shot, a sharp rap at the door interrupted him.

Caro
.

His hand shook; quickly, he straightened up to cover the tremor. “Come.”

It wasn’t Caro who peeked in, though. It was her close friend Lady Tallant, who wrinkled her nose and fanned away the clouds of cigar smoke as she stepped into the room.

“Everything all right, Em?” Her husband detached himself from the human wall around the billiard table and stepped closer to the countess. She looked far too feminine for this room, her light yellow gown frothy against the dark wools and knits and suedes of the men’s clothing.

“Yes, yes,” she choked. “My goodness, this is more smoke than air. How can you all breathe?”

“Tobacco smoke is preservative,” Tallant said. “At least, I think it is.”

Michael suppressed a cough. “Might I help you in some way, Lady Tallant?”

“Yes, if you’ll all accompany me,” said the countess. “We ladies are tired of needlepointing the world and we desire a little male company. I grew alarmed when we hadn’t seen or heard anything from you. Now I see that was a ridiculous fear, as you’re all preserving your good health through pickling and smoking.”

She peered into the gap around the billiard table left by her husband. “Billiards? Are you playing red winning or red losing?”

“Carambole,” Michael replied.

The countess’s eyes lighted. “May I join you?”

More than one man groaned. “I’ll just… ah… be heading to the drawing room,” said Lord Tallant, sidling toward the door of the billiard room. “Em, you’ll come with me?”

“Indeed not.” His lady wife picked up a discarded cue, tossed it a few inches into the air, and snapped it in a neat overhand catch. “I’ve just arrived. Why would I want to fuss with a needle and thread when I could play billiards?”

“I myself have a great fondness for needle and thread,” Hambleton said. “If you’ll all excuse me, I’ll just…” He followed Tallant to the doorway and vanished through it.

In quick succession, the other men followed, muttering various excuses. Everett was the last. He rapped his knuckles on the edge of the table as he left, muttering, “Good luck, Wyverne. She’s the only person I’ve ever met who can shoot as well as you.”

When the door clicked closed behind them, Michael turned to face Lady Tallant, half-mystified, half-annoyed. He had been constructing a framework of camaraderie, and she had smashed it with her impatience to get a bit of male company for the women of the party.

To his surprise, though, she grinned at him. “I must say, my ruse worked remarkably well.” She laid the cue on the billiard table. “I have no real desire to play—unless you do, Your Grace.”

“What ruse is this?” Lady Tallant was known to be devoted to her husband, so this was not a flirtation. It must therefore be…

“Caro,” Lady Tallant finished his unspoken thought. “Yes, I thought it was time I talked to you about her in private.”

“I cannot imagine what you could impart to me that would be inappropriate for others to hear.”

The countess raised one eyebrow. She was quite skilled at that expression. “Since you’ve no idea what I’m going to impart, that makes perfect sense. Why not hear me out? And if you’re comfortable with having others hear it, then I’ll apologize for breaking up your cheery game and I’ll send all the men back in.”

Michael considered. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary. I would, of course, be delighted to hear whatever you wish to tell me.”

Her other eyebrow shot up to join its mate. “I’m not sure how delighted you’ll be, but I am glad for your time.”

Lady Tallant rolled the cue under light fingertips, back and forth on the table. Now that she had gained Michael’s full attention, she seemed uncertain how to make best use of it.

“She’s not who you think,” she finally said. “Caro, I mean.”

“Perhaps not.” Michael kept his voice noncommittal as he held his cue up to his eye and stared down its straight length. “Though that depends on who I think she is. I am sure you are not implying that she has a false identity.”

“I am, actually.”

Michael’s fingers slipped on the cue, catching it right before it clattered onto the billiard tabletop.

The countess smiled. “Not in the sense that she’s… oh, a pirate, or anything like that. But she’s not exactly who she appears to be, either.”

“A countess who holds the polite world in the palm of her hand?” Michael raised his own eyebrows, setting the cue down with nerveless hands.

“She’s that, but much more too. Because everything she is, she created herself.”

Michael studied Lady Tallant’s expression. Her pale face was earnest, even beseeching under its coiled crown of auburn hair. She didn’t look as though she were trying to trick him.