He groaned as memories came back to him—the very memories he’d been doing his best to forget ever since she’d walked away from three days before.
The feel of her in his arms. The way she’d melted into him, trusting him, relying on him, letting him lead. Her trust in him had been the first thing to tug at his heart.
Then it was the sight of her, concentrating so fiercely. The little warrior in his arms. But it was the delight when she’d heard it that he knew he’d remember until the day he died.
The look of sheer pleasure. Complete joy. It was a look he hadn’t been aware she was capable of, but now that he’d seen it, he wanted to see it again, and again, and again.
He wanted that joy to be her norm, not the suspicion and wariness with which she seemed to regard the world.
His mind flashed back to the aunt’s harsh words and he winced.
He supposed it was no wonder she viewed the world with such distrust if that cruel, bitter woman’s voice was forever in her ear.
Even as he thought it, he heard her. Or rather he heard shouting as he handed over his reins to a stable boy and approached the house. The butler showed him into the music room and he could feel the havoc that Pru’s aunt had wreaked.
She was nowhere to be seen, except for in the trembling of Prudence’s lower lip.
“Ready for another lesson?” He tried to keep his voice calm, pleasant. He knew very well that his pity would only be met with contempt.
She was proud, his Pru. Always had been. Always would be. It was what made her such a fierce warrior.
She nodded, her head bowed over the piano, her fingers already going into position.
That was when he saw it. The red mark across her fingers. The painful welt that was forming and the way her head was bent so low as if…
“Pru?”
Her head came up slowly and he caught it. The shimmer of tears in her eyes before she blinked them away with an upward tilt of her chin.
His chest did something unwelcome. It seemed to tighten and twist all at once, his heart lurching at her pain and aching at the sight of her pride which wouldn’t let her show it.
This girl was brave and strong...and more stubborn than a mule.
“Let’s go,” he snapped, his voice harsher than intended.
“Where to?” she asked.
“Anywhere but here.” He wasn’t even entirely sure where he was taking them when he sent word that they would need an escort.
“If Aunt Eleanor finds out—”
“Let her try and stop us.” His growl had her eyes widening in surprise and it was with effort that he softened his tone and forced a smile. “I will deal with your aunt if she has an issue with our outing.”
She arched one brow in doubt. His smile felt far more genuine at her look of disbelief. A flicker of the Pru he knew and—well, not loved. It was a flicker of the Prudence he knew and tolerated.
Still, it was good to see her again. For a moment there he’d thought he’d lost her.
“Come,” he said when a footman announced that the carriage had been brought round.
“Where are we going?” she asked again when they reached the carriage and he helped her into her seat beside her lady’s maid.
He had no idea but the sound of church bells in the distance gave him an idea. “We’re heading into town.” He turned to let the driver know and when he climbed in to join the ladies, he caught her frown.
“But there is a festival going on,” she said.
He laughed at her confusion. “And so there is. The fall festival. You used to love it as a child.”
Her frown intensified. “I did not. You loved it.”
“Mmm.” He nodded in agreement. “So I did. You should have loved it, though, and perhaps today I could show you why.”
She huffed. “How is this supposed to help me improve in the music room?”
He tapped a finger to his temple. “I have my ways. Musical genius, remember?”
She rolled her eyes at the now-familiar joke, but he caught the twitch of her lips as she fought a grin. “I should never have told you that.”
“Ah, but you did,” he said, leaning back in his seat. “And now it is an absolute truth.”
“Why?”
“Because the ton said so.” He half turned to face her. “You’ve told me time and again that what society says is as good as law. It’s akin to holy scripture, even, by your accounts.”
She tsked, her gaze darting toward the lady’s maid who was studiously ignoring them both. “Don’t be sacrilegious.”
“I am merely quoting you,” he teased.
“And yet, I never said that.” Her tone was all huffy and indignant, her lips pursed as usual, but there was no denying the laughter in her eyes. For a moment her gaze met his and held. For the first time in a long time—perhaps for the first time ever—they seemed to be in on the joke together. Not him mocking her, or her chiding him, but both of them finding humor in their own foibles.
He was incorrigible; she was a prig. And for once, that was rather amusing.
She looked away first. “I still do not see how this outing will improve my performance.”
“Don’t you?” He smiled when she gave the view outside her window the prickly glare he was so familiar with.
“There are no instruments at the fair,” she pointed out as the bumpy dirt road they traveled upon grew cluttered with crowds heading toward town.
“Aren’t there?” He pretended to be shocked and outright laughed when she turned that glare his way.
“So then how shall we practice?”
When he didn’t immediately answer, her eyes clouded with something he could not name but hated more than life itself. “What shall I tell Aunt Eleanor when she asks?”
A muscle in his jaw twitched with anger.
Fear. That look he’d seen there in her eyes was fear...and he hated it. He’d loathe seeing that fear in anyone, but from Prudence—who might have been a goody-two-shoes, but was braver and more confident than most people he knew…
It was unbearable.
It made him want to shake some sense into her aunt, or at the very least steal Prudence away so she wouldn’t have to face her again.
“Leave your aunt to me,” was all he managed to say.
Something in his tone had her eyes widening and her lips curved up into a wan smile. “I should like to see that.”
He returned her smile and once again there was a moment. An understanding.
Before she broke it with a frown, leaning forward in impatience. “But honestly, Damian, how shall I practice here? There is no instrument in sight.”
He grinned, reaching out and bopping her nose like she was a child. Her look said she was not amused.
“The fact that there is no instrument here is precisely the point.” The carriage rattled as it slowed. “For now we are through with those lessons. Today we focus on your voice.”
Her eyes widened and she clapped a hand over her throat. “My voice?”
The voice in question sounded an awful lot like a squeak at the moment.
“Your voice,” he repeated slowly, as if she had merely misheard.
“But I can’t—” Her protest was cut short as the carriage came to a halt and he swung the door open. Helping her out and then the lady’s maid, who’d clearly been trained well to be all but invisible, he led Pru toward the center of excitement.
They headed through a maze of stalls, past a marionette show which was thronged with children, away from the livestock which stunk to high heaven, and bought them each a jam tart before finding a bench for them to sit and watch the action.
The lady’s maid hovered nearby, watching them like a hawk. “She could have had a treat too, you know.”
Pru shrugged. “I offered. She refused.” She eyed the tart in her hands with such longing, he had the sudden urge to snatch it away from her and hold it up in front of his face to see what it would feel like to have her look at him that way.<
br />
Stuff and nonsense. He took a bite with a shake of his head, waiting for her to do the same. When she didn’t, he nudged her arm. “Is there something wrong with it? I can get you another if you’d prefer—”
“Oh no, there’s nothing wrong. I just shouldn’t, that’s all.” She continued to eye the treat as if it were her first love leaving for sea.
He started to scoff, ready to tease her for this rare display of melodrama, but caught himself just in time.
She was not in jest. She was serious. She was debating whether or not to eat the sweets. Her great aunt’s horrible words came back to him and he growled low in his throat. “Eat the tart, Pru.”
She blinked up at him in surprise. “Pardon me?”
“Eat the tart,” he said, gentler this time. “Your aunt has no idea what she’s talking about.”
“W-what do you mean?” she started.
He rolled his eyes as he shifted to face her. “Tell me, Pru, in all your years living with the Dowager Demon, have you ever seen gentlemen ogling her skin-and-bones body?”
Pru’s eyes widened but he was not done.
“Have you ever heard of a man longing for a woman whose stomach is growling and who looks as though she’s one missed meal away from starvation?”
Pru blinked, her lips parting in surprise, no doubt at his passion for this particular topic.
“Do you think any man in his right mind would prefer a skin-and-bones miserable old stick like your aunt to someone who is as lush and vivacious and beautiful as you?”
Her eyes were so wide he nearly drowned in them, her lips were so soft and full when they weren’t pursed or pressed together in a thin line of disapproval. She was so utterly beguiling when she wasn’t—
“That was entirely inappropriate,” she breathed.
He choked on a laugh. She was beguiling when she forgot to be priggish Pru. Although, he couldn’t quite stop his grin because her words lacked heat and it truly was fantastically diverting to get a rise out of her.
If she were to simper or giggle or heaven forbid flirt after such a phenomenally forward speech like that—
Well, that just wouldn’t be Prudence, now would it?
And where would be the fun in that?
He watched her profile as she watched the crowds milling along the path before them. Honestly. When had she become so pretty?
Or had she always been pretty and he’d been too thick to notice?
He nodded to himself. Probably the latter. He’d been a remarkably stupid boy. Well, perhaps not stupid, but definitely selfish. So caught up in his own grief and the wild emotions that came from being uprooted from his comfortable world as the son of society’s outcasts. In one moment he’d gone from being a society scandal to the marquess’s one and only heir.
Not even his father had believed he would actually inherit when he’d been the heir presumptive, but as each year passed and his uncle failed to remarry, it was becoming alarmingly clear that he might really be stuck with the title and role he did not want.
If only his uncle’s first wife hadn’t died. If only he’d had a happy marriage. If only he were anyone but Damian, the thought might not be so abhorrent. But he hadn’t been born to this life, and he certainly never wanted it.
He found himself lost in memory until her voice brought him back to the present. “It’s been so long since I’ve been to a fair like this one, I almost forgot they existed.”
He let out a short burst of air, halfway between a laugh and a scoff.
“The last time I came to this one—”
“You were miserable,” he finished on her behalf. He’d meant it to be teasing. Though she had been miserable. Sometimes it had seemed like she was always miserable, and she’d never been content to revel in misery alone.
He glanced over now, expecting to see her rolling her eyes or sighing in exasperation. He was surprised to find her blushing. A mottled red streaked her neck as she dipped her head but her eyes were unfocused, lost in thought.
Lost in memories, just like he’d been.
“That’s true,” she murmured. “I was miserable.”
And all at once, he was ready to kick himself. Of course she’d been miserable. She’d been living with the Dowager Demon back then, too. Her parents had never been around, as far as he knew. She’d been stuck in that awful stuffy house with that horrid, cruel woman.
He winced as the full weight of his childish self-absorption hit him upside the head.
Of course she’d been miserable...and he’d done nothing to help. “I’m sorry, Pru.”
She whipped her head to the side to face him. “Pardon me?”
He cleared his throat. “I, er...I wanted to apologize.”
Her eyes were wide again. Wide and unblinking. “For what? Bringing me here?” She laughed softly. “I’ll admit, I’m worried about how I’ll explain this to my aunt, but I’m rather pleased to have a break—”
“No,” he interrupted. “That wasn’t what I meant. I meant that I’m sorry for when we were kids. I’m sorry for teasing you and playing pranks.”
Her brows knitted together in confusion. “You’re sorry?” Suspicion like he hadn’t seen in days lit her eyes. “Why?”
He flinched. “Er…”
Her eyes narrowed.
“It’s just that now, as adults, I realize that…” He cleared his throat. Oh curse it. He was toeing the line of pity again, and that would not do. He spit it out quickly. “I realize that your life must not have been easy living with the Dowager Demon and I’m sorry for my part in making your situation more uncomfortable.”
She stared at him for such a long time he started to fidget. Then she burst out in a laugh, clapping a hand over her mouth to stifle the sound that brought countless heads turning in their direction, startled birds flying out of the tree overhead, and her chaperone peering over with a glare.
She recovered quickly. “You should not call her that, you know.”
He merely tipped his chin in acknowledgement since the chastisement sounded like something she uttered out of habit more than anything.
“Still,” he said, a smile teasing his lips as he watched her settle, her whole body seeming to soften with that laugh, her features going from pretty to stunning with that rare display of joy. “You could not have had it easy as a child in that house.”
She cast him a quick sidelong look and what he saw there made his heart ache. He felt sorry for Prudence today but the thought of her as an innocent child in that house that held no love, only criticism and scorn…
It made him want to pull her into his arms and tell her all that she was worth, give her everything that she deserved.
The urge came on so fast, so insistent, it left him temporarily stunned and speechless.
“You are hardly to blame for my childhood woes,” she said, her smile wry and just a bit cynical. “There is plenty of blame to go around and none of it belongs to you.”
He shifted toward her. He had questions that begged to be asked but that were none of his business. He’d heard the rumors about her parents, the dowager duchess’s younger sister’s wayward daughter. But back then it had all felt so removed. He hadn’t bothered to think about what that had been like for her, abandoned by her parents and left with a woman without a maternal bone in her body, the rest of the family taking no interest in her.
“Besides…” Her smile turned gentle. Sweet, almost. It stole his breath right out of his lungs. “You didn’t exactly have an easy childhood yourself, now did you?”
The question was rhetorical but he still found himself murmuring, “No. I suppose not.”
Just like he’d heard rumors about her parents, he had no doubt she’d heard every detail of the scandal that was his parents. “But,” he said, shifting closer. “I was treated kindly by my uncle, and was given every advantage.”
She made a noise.
He looked over with a start. “Are you laughing at me?” He honestly wasn’t certain whether
to be shocked, amused, or offended.
She bit her lip. “My apologies, it’s just…” She dropped her voice low in a comical impersonation. “I was given every advantage.” Her laughter was sweet and melodic. “I’m not certain who you are trying to convince but it was not terribly convincing.”
He started to laugh, as well. “You’ll think me ungrateful…”
She leaned over, nudging his shoulder with hers in a move that was surprisingly playful. “Go on.”
He shrugged. “It’s just...I was happier with my parents, that’s all.”
“Mmm.” Her murmur of agreement seemed to say everything and nothing, and it held more than a little bit of wistfulness.
“But Uncle Edward truly was kind. He still is.” He flashed her a rueful smile. “He’s probably too kind. Some might say he spoils me.”
“Really? Who would ever say such a thing?” she asked so mildly that it made him laugh.
“I trust you think it’s true.”
She shrugged, turning away. “I would have said as such as a child, I’m certain. But I was also terribly jealous of your kind uncle so it’s possible I was holding a bit of a grudge.”
“A bit of a grudge?” he asked, his brows arching in disbelief.
Now it was her turn to laugh at herself, and the fact that she did warmed him all the way through. “Fine. I was extraordinarily jealous of you and your kind household and I treated you badly because of it. Happy now?”
“Very.” He wasn’t certain if she had changed, or if he had, or if they were only now truly getting to know one another, but hearing her laugh at her own self-righteous image made him shift his view of her again.
At this rate, he wouldn’t recognize her come nightfall.
Chapter Seven
This was pleasant. Too pleasant.
As far as Prudence was concerned, this entire outing had been too pleasant by far. Is there such a thing as too pleasant? She could practically hear Louisa asking that question, but the answer was yes.
Yes, there was.
Because nothing good could come of enjoying Damian’s company. Nothing good could come of all this time they’d been spending together unless she suddenly and miraculously became a musical genius.
The School of Charm: Books 1-5 Page 46
