To Pleasure a Prince (16 page)

Though he was finally being truthful about his aims, his honesty rankled. “And you do now?”

Covering her hand with his, he smiled. “You should know the answer to that. What man has ever stayed immune to your charms for long?”

His words too closely echoed his flattery of Lady Hungate. She wasn’t sure she liked this insincere version of Marcus. “Do not insult my intelligence. I know you never intended this to be a real courtship.”

“Did
you
intend it to be?” His gaze narrowed, burning into hers. “If you want truths, madam, perhaps you should offer some yourself. Your only reason for agreeing to the courtship was to help your brother. For all I know, you are part of his scheme to bring Louisa under Prinny’s influence.”

“Louisa is my friend—I would never betray her friendship.” She lifted her chin. “And if that was my aim, I would certainly never have let you kiss me.”

“You did that to satisfy your dangerous taste for adventure.”

“That wasn’t the only reason I let you kiss me,” she whispered.

His fingers tightened painfully on her hand. “Wasn’t it?”

Although her cheeks flamed, she forced herself to meet his gaze. “No.”

He looked as if he meant to say something else, but then Cicely appeared and launched herself fully into her role as chaperone.

Leaving Regina to wonder at her own boldness. How could she have been so foolish as to admit his effect on her? She shouldn’t give him reason to believe she might welcome his attentions. It was one thing when she’d been sure he intended the courtship to annoy her and Simon. But if his miraculous change genuinely stemmed from his desire to please her, if he truly meant to court her…

She imagined herself as his wife. In town, they would attend the theater and the opera, sharing kisses in the boxes, sneaking caresses in the carriage. At his estate, she would be his lady of the manor, dining with him, managing his staff, consulting with his steward on household accounts—

As if she could even read them. Her heart sank. What a futile fantasy. She could never have such a marriage. And what about her children? Even if they were spared her affliction, how could she endure the humiliation of not being able to read to them, or having them think her stupid? Having
him
think her stupid?

She could never marry Marcus or anyone else. But for the first time in her life, she wished she could.

Nothing keeps a young lady on her best behavior around young gentlemen better than the threat of a loose-tongued brother.

—Miss Cicely Tremaine,
The Ideal Chaperone

T
hat wasn’t the only reason I let you kiss me.

The statement clamored in Marcus’s head for the next hour. He’d come here to prove once and for all that Regina’s friends were too heartless for Louisa; now that had all gone to hell. Initially, he’d received the same condescending glances, sly asides, and cruel treatment he’d come to expect whenever he went into public, but that had faded before long. Now he found only deferential curiosity, a grudging acknowledgment of his right to belong.

At the center of it stood Regina, in white lace and blue silk. For once, her golden hair was adorned with flowers instead of a hat. She glowed like spring at its warmest, and her public manner toward him matched her look. She glanced at him long and often, on the dance floor and at the lemonade table. From far across the room. And now from right beside him, where she’d stayed ever since they’d returned from their waltz.

She stood surrounded by the usual crowd of fawning admirers, both male and female, yet
he
was the one she graced with her smile,
he
was the one with whom she conversed the most.

He didn’t know what to make of it. Had he been wrong, not only about her, but about the rest of the lot? Might he even have been wrong about Foxmoor and Louisa?

No, he could not believe that. While Regina might not have anything to do with Foxmoor’s scheme, he knew Foxmoor had one.

“What do
you
think about the war, Lord Draker?” Regina asked. “Is Boney beaten at last?”

He dragged his attention back to the conversation between her and an assortment of her friends who seemed astonishingly content to stand in the same circle with him.

His first impulse was to admit that he didn’t give a damn about the war one way or the other. But he was already growing used to squelching such “ungentlemanly” responses. “Boney can hardly escape Elba with a phalanx of English soldiers guarding him.”

“Especially if the English soldiers are as big as you, my lord,” said a young woman with a heavy Spanish accent, the cousin of one of the other ladies. When he glanced at her, she lowered her eyes shyly. “And as strong.”

He blinked. Great God, was she flirting with him? He couldn’t remember the last time
that
had happened, if ever. “I should think a Purdey rifle would be more useful for keeping Boney in check than any Englishman’s brawny arm,” he said gruffly, uncomfortable with such flattery.

“Do you shoot, Draker?” asked another voice, this one male.

He eyed the fellow warily. “Occasionally. I have to keep the quail population in check at Castlemaine, or they’ll eat the fleece right off my sheep.”

To his astonishment, they laughed at his puny joke. Genuinely laughed. And he wasn’t even trying to be witty.

“So what sort of firearm do you use?” asked another lordling, one closer to his age. “James Purdey does make a good flintlock, I’ll grant you, but I prefer Manton. His rifles fire truer.”

“Have you seen Purdey’s newest design?” Marcus retorted, at ease with his subject. “I hear it’s superior to the one the army is using now.”

They continued talking about firearms until one of the ladies asked, “Is that how you got your scar, Lord Draker? From a flintlock?”

He tensed, but before he could say a word, Regina answered from beside him. “It was a riding accident, nothing unusual for an active man like his lordship.”

And as easily as that, she turned the thing he’d spent a lifetime cringing over into a badge of honor. Regina swiftly changed the subject to a discussion of the opera they’d attended, and to his amazement, no one seemed to mind.

He shot her a bemused look. She hadn’t voiced her own opinion about how he’d received his scar, one that was surprisingly close to the truth. Why hadn’t she? To protect him from more rude questions?

The conversation floated on, and her eyes met his, her tender look making his breath catch. This is what it would be like if he married her. She would defend him, even when he didn’t need defending. She would attend every function on his arm, dance with him whenever he pleased, dine with him nightly…

Share his bed. And everything else, too.

A strange flood of yearning rose to choke him. What if he could actually be part of the world,
this
world? What if he could have a real future, a wife and children and friends? What if he took his rightful place in society—

Damn her for putting such thoughts in his head. It was bound to lead to trouble; it always did. Yet he couldn’t stop thinking about it. To have a life beyond Castlemaine, a life like anyone else…all his plans to use Regina to separate Louisa and Simon paled in comparison to that dangerously tempting idea.

Steady now,
he warned himself. Such thoughts were highly premature. La Belle Dame had refused eleven men; why should she accept the twelfth?

Why
shouldn’t
she? He was eligible enough—his title, wealth, and birth would have made him sought after in society if not for his outcast status. Now that his status was improving, things might be different.

Perhaps he could make it possible. Regina did enjoy his kisses; that much he knew. And he could provide her with every physical comfort, if she could be content to live away from town for part of the year. Surely he could make it so she didn’t
want
to leave his side. Give her a child or two, and she would be tied irrevocably to him and Castlemaine.

That never worked for your mother.

No, but his mother had been tempted into sin by the devil himself. If Regina became his, he would keep her well away from such devils.

He forced his attention back to the conversation swirling around him, about one gentlemen’s refurbishments to his estate. Regina’s comments were surprisingly astute. He’d never guessed that she knew what an oriel was or had any opinion whatsoever about projecting eaves. Perhaps her interests were broader than he’d thought.

“I hear that your father did extensive renovation to Castlemaine some years ago,” one gentleman said to Marcus, forcibly dragging him into the discussion. “Was he able to keep the work to a reasonable length of time?”

“It took a few years, actually,” Marcus answered. “As a boy, I thought scaffolding in the dining room was normal.”

The Spanish girl, who’d edged over to stand next to Regina, gazed at him with rampant curiosity. “Castlemaine is your home, Lord Draker?”

He nodded.

“It is a castle, no?”

“No, Silvia,” her female cousin, Lady Amanda, said in a superior tone. “I’m sure it is not really a castle. You haven’t been in England long enough to understand how things are, but plenty of things have ‘castle’ in their name that have nothing to do with castles.”

When the girl blushed crimson, a snide retort sprang to Marcus’s lips. But before he could put Lady Amanda in her place, Regina smiled down at the mortified foreigner. “Actually, it
is
a castle, dating back to…what?” She turned to Marcus. “The early fifteenth century?”

“Or thereabouts.” He relaxed, touched not only by her handling of the girl but her interest in his home. That was a good sign, a very good sign indeed.

Eyes twinkling, Regina told Silvia, “It even has a dungeon.”

“Truly?” the girl said, her gaze swinging to Marcus’s. “A real dungeon?”

The women’s enthusiasm was infectious. Marcus smiled. “I’ve been told it was used as such during the reign of Henry VIII, but since then it’s served mostly as storage for meat or wine or whatever the present owner chooses.”

“And what do
you
keep in the dungeon, sir?” Lady Amanda asked, with a coy flutter of her eyelashes.

Another flirting female. Amazing.

Regina snorted. “Nothing of interest to you, Amanda, I’m sure.”

Marcus’s gaze shot to her. She couldn’t actually be jealous, could she?

“Oh?” Lady Amanda retorted slyly. “How would you know unless you’ve seen it? You must have seen his estate, to know so much about his ‘castle.’ ”

Regina colored. “Well…I…that is—

“Her brother is quite enamored of my sister,” Marcus said swiftly. “Of course they’ve visited Castlemaine.” As Lady Amanda and her companions exchanged knowing glances, he decided it was time to put an end to this dangerous conversation. “Now, if you will excuse us, I promised the next dance to Lady Regina.” He held his arm out. “Shall we?”

She took it with a grateful smile, and they walked off toward the ballroom. As soon as they were out of earshot, she murmured, “Thank you.”

“I take it that Lady Amanda would delight in seeing you ruined.”

“Amanda is only happy when everyone else is miserable.”

He shook his head. “And that is the sort of woman you consider a friend?”

“That is the sort of woman I consider a necessary evil,” she countered. “Tell me, did you enjoy your conversation with the gentlemen about rifles?”

“I suppose,” he hedged.

“One of those men is Amanda’s brother. He is a perfectly amiable fellow and someone I enjoy talking to; but to have his company, I must endure hers from time to time, and so I do.”

“I don’t know why. I wouldn’t give you a farthing for any of them.”

“But surely there are people you would give a farthing for, people whose friends you endure because you enjoy their company. The Iversleys, perhaps.”

“I don’t have to endure their friends to have their company. And the few friends they do have are fine with me.”

“Then perhaps there is someone else you would care enough about to endure their companions? Your brother, for example?”

His gaze shot to her. “Brother?”

“Oh, please, don’t play the innocent with me. It is clear that you and Mr. Byrne are friends, and everyone knows you are half brothers.”

“Prinny says otherwise.”

“True. But he doesn’t have to acknowledge Mr. Byrne as his son for people to know that he is. Just as they know that
you
are. And I’ll wager that if either of you would un-bend enough to approach His Highness, he would treat you with the same generosity as he’s treated his other natural children.”

“Even if that were true, and I’m not sure that it is,” Marcus retorted, “any help he provided would come with conditions. And I am not interested in bowing to his dam—…to his cursed conditions.”

She stopped to pull him to the lemonade table, which presently stood deserted. As he poured her a glass, she gazed up at him earnestly. “Is that why you cast the prince out of your home all those years ago?”

“I cast him out of my home because he turned my mother into a whore.”

“Did he?”

He could almost see what she was thinking.
It takes two to make a whore.
That painful truth was one he’d spent half his life trying to ignore.

And he was no more disposed to think about it now. He poured a glass of lemonade for himself. “We weren’t discussing my mother,” he grumbled. “We were discussing Byrne. And I don’t see what he has to do with anything. Or why you think he and I are such great friends.”

She shrugged. “He had to be the one who got you your Stranger’s Ticket. Everyone knows he and a certain Lady Patroness were once…intimate companions.”

“You know an awful lot about things a young lady shouldn’t.”

She smiled. “Thank you. I do try to keep abreast of the gossip.”

“For what reason?”

“To help me distinguish my friends from my enemies.”

“What a fine world you live in, that you have to do such a thing,” he said, lifting his glass in a mock toast.

“And your world is different? You ignore the local gossip about your tenants? You don’t know who is trustworthy or who has mistreated his family or who is too proud to take a tuppence of charity? You don’t act on such knowledge?”

He drank some lemonade. “It’s not the same.”

“Why? Because they’re not of your station? Admit it, Marcus—your world isn’t that different from mine. It’s made up of the good and the bad, the dangerous and the benign. And if a sensible person is to survive in either world, he—or she—must be able to tell which is which.”

He had never thought of it in quite that way. “I suppose,” he conceded.

“Because you’ve made that world yours, you understand it, and that’s why you feel comfortable in it. But you could understand this one, too, if you chose. This is where you belong, you know. I don’t understand why you fight it so.”

“Because I have never belonged here before.”

“You never
tried
to belong.”

“I saw no advantage to it. I still see none.”

“Wouldn’t marrying Louisa off be simpler if you were around to watch?”

A reluctant chuckle erupted from him. “You are too clever for your own good, did you know that?”

She graced him with a brilliant smile. “No. Not until you said so.”

Her smile pierced the scales that had long encased his heart, spreading a sweet warmth throughout him. He wanted this woman. It made no sense, and God knew it was foolish, but he wanted her. And not just in his bed, either.

He wanted her beside him at Castlemaine and—if need be—in a town house in London. He wanted to possess her so badly his body ached with it. She reminded him of the “woman clothed in sun” in his very own Blake dragon painting. He wanted her sun to shine only for him, only for the dragon.

But could the dragon possess the woman without consuming her? Or being consumed by her sun? That he did not know.

“Well, if it isn’t the cozy pair,” said a bitter male voice behind them.

Regina’s smile stiffened into a polite mask as she turned to greet the newcomer. “Good evening, Henry. How good to see you.”

Marcus faced her idiot cousin, forcing himself to acknowledge the man with a nod. “Whitmore. We were just headed off to dance.”

“With full lemonade glasses? I think not.” Whitmore insinuated himself between them and helped himself to the depleted source of lemonade. “Besides, you need not pretend around me. The rest of these fools may fall for this ridiculous act, but I at least know what’s really going on between you two.”

Alarm sparked in Regina’s eyes. “I can’t imagine what you mean.” She set down her lemonade glass to take Marcus’s arm. “And we were indeed going to dance. So if you’ll excuse us, Henry…”