by Anne Gracie
Prudence’s feelings were so mixed. On the one hand it was wonderful to see Grace looking so happy. She had become so quiet and almost morbid during the last year or so at Dereham Court, but a few moments in Lord Carradice’s company, and she was smiling and chattering like any other ten-year-old girl. She’d even heard her giggle once. Prudence hadn’t realized how long it had been since she’d heard Grace giggle. For that alone, she owed Lord Carradice her gratitude.
It wasn’t simply careless charm, either. He had been kind to Grace, sensitive to her fascination with ancient Egypt. Many fashionable types would have scoffed at her interest in a fad no longer current, but he’d reassured Grace and made her feel important. And now he looked as though he was listening to her with every appearance of interest. Not many sophisticated men of fashion would bother drawing out a child. It would be more common for their eyes to roam the park, seeking more interesting diversions, but as far as she could see, Lord Carradice’s eyes had only strayed from Grace to Prudence. Again, it ought to have earned her gratitude, for Grace needed to experience masculine kindness, to know that all men were not like Grandpapa…
All of these were excellent reasons why Prudence should feel warm toward Lord Carradice. Instead they made her more determined than ever to avoid him. She didn’t need Lady Jersey’s warnings that he was a fatally charming rattlesnake and she could place no dependence on his constancy.
She knew about his fatal charm. He effortlessly drew her to him—the rake in him seemed to call to some dreadful female weakness in her. The animal instincts Grandpapa had spoken of so often and that she’d never believed in—until Lord Carradice.
To be in the grip of such instincts should be alarming, and indeed, when she was in a calm and rational state and out of reach of his rakish wiles, she was alarmed. But when she was with Lord Carradice…her deplorable animal instincts seemed to just take over.
But that was only part of his danger. Prudence’s short time in London had taught her that growing up as she had in an atmosphere of cruel harshness, she had few defenses against kindness. Lord Carradice’s careless kindness to her little sister was devastating. It threatened to undermine all her resolve.
It was the most dangerous wile of all. All the more dangerous because she suspected it wasn’t a wile at all.
She watched him charming her little sister with kindness and tried to harden her resolve. Kindness wasn’t everything. He was perfectly capable of taking advantage of whatever it was that Grace had confided, only to tease Prudence. And the trouble was that even while she knew he was only teasing, she…she felt things. Things a betrothed woman had no right feeling for another man.
He was not the slightest bit serious about her. How could he be? He was a gazetted rake and she was no beauty to entice him into fidelity. He had no respect for the concept; he knew she’d been engaged to Phillip for years. He should have realized her mind was firm and resolute and not to be swayed by a rake’s easy charm, but did he care?
She thought of Cleopatra’s barge: Her mind might be resolute, but her body was only too easily swayed. And it could not be!
As Lady Jersey had told her, he was simply bored, like the rest of London society, and thought he would entertain himself with her for the season. But like him or not, Prudence would be no rake’s idle entertainment. For her own peace of mind and self-respect, she would have as little to do with him as possible.
She broke away from the two ladies as soon as politeness allowed, ready to send Lord Carradice on his way. But as she walked toward them, her decision faltered. Her little sister sat happily arm in arm with Lord Carradice, her eyes fairly blazing with excitement. Prudence blinked. Surely any man who could make Grace look so happy could not be all bad.
His eyes, too, gleamed with laughter and anticipation. That look ought to warn her, she reminded herself. Just so had he looked before he had first kissed her. His eyes had glinted that way as he pressed her back on a certain Egyptian sofa.
She couldn’t trust him an inch.
“Thank you for keeping Grace company,” she said brightly and seized Grace’s hand. “However it is late, and we must find our sisters and get home. Good-bye, Lord Carradice.”
She began to march toward the exit, but Grace dragged at her arm, saying, “Prudence, Lord Carradice and I have come up with the most brilliant solution to our problems!”
“It is so kind of Lord Carradice to be concerned,” she said sweetly, flinging a look over Grace’s head that told Lord Carradice that she wished him to take himself off. “However, I don’t wish to trouble him with our private family affairs. I’m sure he has much more important matters to take care of.” She hurried on.
“Not at all.” He ambled along beside her and quite casually added, “Grace and I have decided that the best thing is for you and I to become betrothed—purely for your sisters’ sake, of course. Nothing binding.”
She stumbled a moment in shock. “You must be mad, Lord Carradice! I couldn’t possibly agree to anything so absurd!”
She tried to lengthen her pace, as if to escape his outrageous suggestion. Beside her, Lord Carradice strolled along, his long legs easily outpacing hers with no apparent effort.
“Why not?” he asked in a reasonable tone.
“Yes, Prue, why not? I think it is a splendid plan,” said Grace enthusiastically, skipping along beside them.
Prudence darted her a quelling glance. It was not a splendid plan, it was impossible! Quite ridiculous! She hurried on through the park, peering around in an effort to see that landau with her sisters in it. Unfortunately, there were so many other people, she could not see over them. “I’m a little worried that your coachman may have become lost with my sisters.”
“Hawkins is never lost, and besides, my cousin is with them. Now don’t change the subject. We were discussing our betrothal,” said Lord Carradice calmly.
Prudence came to an abrupt halt. “Hush!” She glanced around. “People might hear you and not know you are funning, and then we should really be in the suds!”
He shrugged. “I don’t care if they hear—”
“Well, I do!”
He took her hands and smiled down into her eyes, a sort of lazy, knowing smile that weakened her resistance quite disgracefully. She snatched her hands away.
He lowered his voice slightly. “Grace and I are agreed. Your sisters must have their coming-out before Grandpapa’s ankle is healed, and since Great-uncle Oswald is so pig-headed about firing you off first, and since Otterbottom is in India, giving some poor tiger indigestion—”
“Mr. Otterbury is not!” Prudence glared at Grace. “Did you have to blurt out everythi—”
“Or oozing up between the toes of some miserable elephant,” Lord Carradice continued imperturbably, “you have need of a fiancé faux to foil Great-uncle Oswald’s foolish dictum concerning your sisters’ coming-out, and thus I humbly offer my services.”
“Humbly!” She snorted. “It’s impossible!”
“Why is it impossible? I’m frequently humble. I do humility extremely well. Ask anyone! I was voted the most humb—”
She interrupted his nonsense. “I meant, your offer is impossible. I wouldn’t do at all.”
“Why not? Grace likes me, you like me, Great-uncle Oswald—”
“Grace is an impressionable child, easily deceived!” Prudence ignored an indignant gasp from her sister and continued in a heated tone. “And you cannot possibly claim that Great-uncle Oswald likes you. He despises you. He called you a smoky knave and an unshaven lout!”
He passed his hand across his chin. “You will perceive I possess a razor.”
“He also called you a vile deceiver, a cowardly impostor, and a shocking humbug!”
“Pah! Sticks and stones!” Lord Carradice dismissed Great-uncle Oswald’s strictures airily. “And it was shockin’ humbug, not shocking. In any case, men of his age are not at their best at such an ungodly hour of the the morning. I think you will find he is singing rather a
different tune now.”
“Pooh!” snapped Prudence inelegantly. “Why would he have changed his tune so suddenly?”
Lord Carradice managed to look wicked, smug, and saintly, all at the same time.
“In any case,” Prudence added belatedly, “I don’t like you!”
He shook his head at her, a deep smile lurking in his dark eyes. “Oh, Prudence, here I thought you were a truthful girl! Relatively speaking. All dukes aside.”
Prudence found herself reddening under his suddenly intent and knowing gaze. She turned away, suddenly flustered. She did not like him! Not one little bit! She couldn’t possibly like such a frivolous person! She refused to!
He added in a purr, “I’m sure you do like me. I’m very likeable, once you get to know me. Grace liked me after only a few minutes, didn’t you, Miss Limb?”
Her traitorous little sister nodded enthusiastically.
“See! Even Great-uncle Oswald came to like me once he knew me better. I grow on people, you see—”
“So do warts!” she snapped. “And I never gave you leave to call me Prudence. I am Miss Merridew to you, sir! And I will not enter into a false engagement—or any other sort—with you! Come, Grace! Come, James!” And gesturing to the waiting footman, she marched imperiously off, dragging Grace by the hand.
He strolled along beside her, seeming to take one step to her three. “It is most unfashionable to scurry through the park, you know.”
“I am not scurrying!” Prudence moderated her pace in as dignified a manner as she could.
“No?” he said as if it were the most ordinary of conversations. “Would you say scuttling was more accurate? I wouldn’t have thought so, but—”
“I will not bandy words with you,” Prudence said frostily, tugging her giggling sister along.
“No? What will you bandy with me, then? I’ll bandy whatever you like, I don’t mind.” His voice lowered suggestively, bringing an irresistible image to Prudence’s mind of those stolen wicked moments when he had driven every proper thought from her head and swamped her body with wondrous sensations…And her mind, ever since, with impossible dreams…
Prudence could not bring herself to answer him. It was a ridiculous situation, she thought crossly. Like fleeing from a tiger, only the tiger persisted in loping along beside her, making conversational banter and looking at her in a way that made her hot and flustered. With fury, of course. She strode on toward the exit nearest to Great-uncle Oswald’s house, Grace skipping along on one side of her, Lord Carradice strolling on the other, and James, the footman, stolidly bringing up in the rear.
She suddenly remembered something and confronted him with it. “Why do you think Great-uncle Oswald’s dictum is foolish?” she asked, and then cursed herself for her own foolishness.
He gave her a direct look. “Your sisters’ entry into society could make no difference to your own likelihood of finding a husband. A beauty need not worry about attracting suitors. Sir Oswald is a man of enterprise. If there is a fly in the ointment, he will no doubt find a dowry large enough to sweeten the pot.”
It was as if he’d slapped her. It was not as if she didn’t know she was plain and undesirable; she had known it all her life. Still, the careless words, so casually uttered had…hurt. Deeply.
It was a warning that she would be very foolish not to heed, Prudence told herself. This man had the power to slip past her barriers. They were barely acquainted and yet he had already hurt her unbelievably, simply by uttering words—words she knew to be true.
It wasn’t only her fashionable Great-uncle and London’s leading mantua maker who thought her too plain to be desired in marriage; this was from a rake—a man who really would know. A man who had been teasing her from who-knew-what motives. Teasing. Flirting. Putting foolish, impossible dreams in her head. Making her feel attractive, desirable, almost pretty.
And then telling her she was a fly in the ointment.
How could she have thought he was kind?
She didn’t want his double-edged admiration. She didn’t need his false, foolish dreams or his false betrothal. She had a betrothed; Phillip. Phillip, who did not care that she was plain and had given her a ring to prove it. Four and a half years ago.
She strode blindly on, blinking fiercely to prevent the sudden uprush of scalding, stupid tears she could feel prickling behind her eyes and in her throat, just waiting to spring forth in front of…in front of everyone and humiliate her.
She stumbled over a cobblestone and his hand was there to support and steady her. “What is wrong?” he said, in a low, concerned voice. “What have I—”
She shook off his hand fiercely. “I have the headache. Just leave me alone,” she snapped. “Just go away!” She heard her voice crack. “Stay away from me, in future, Lord Carradice! And stay away from my sisters, too!” And snatching her sister’s hand, Prudence hurried away.
Gideon stared after her. “What the—” He glanced at her footman and received such a look of contempt that he was stunned. “What did I say?” he demanded.
But the footman merely shook his head and marched off after the two girls.
Chapter Eight
“There is nothing more unbecoming in a man of quality than to laugh ’tis such a vulgar expression of the passion.”
WILLIAM CONGREVE
“ALL I DID WAS OFFER TO ACT AS HER BETROTHED, SO THAT HER wretched sisters could make their coming-out.” Gideon had arrived in the dining room that evening to find his cousin already seated at the table, gazing abstractedly at a silver bowl of fruit set in its center. “And she sent me packing and stormed off in a huff!” It was more than a huff. What the devil had he said that upset her so?
“Very unsettling,” responded Edward. “Shall I ring for the first course?”
Gideon frowned. Edward seemed a little preoccupied. Perhaps he was finding the whirl of London society a little overwhelming. But he had no time to worry about his cousin. His last words had upset Prudence, and he could not for the life of him imagine why. He’d gone over their conversation a dozen times in his head already, and still he was none the wiser.
He ought to have put it out of his mind. It was what he usually did. Women were odd creatures and often did get upset by the strangest things. But for some reason he couldn’t put it out of his mind. He decided to consult his cousin.
“I thought it was what she wanted, but she behaved for all the world as if I’d mortally insulted her.” He shook out his napkin and cast a worried look at the duke. “Even her footman gave me the blackest look. Am I so notorious?”
Edward shook his head. “I wouldn’t call you notorious. A terrible flirt, perhaps; a little too free with other men’s wives on several occasions—though it has to be admitted that the wives do seek you out—but notorious, no. What exactly did you say to her?”
Gideon made a frustrated gesture. “I simply assured her that her sisters could not make the slightest difference to her own marriageability, that beauty would always find suitors. And that if there was a fly, or flies, in the ointment, Sir Oswald would sweeten the pot with a fat dowry. And she behaved as if I’d insulted her!” He shook his head and helped himself to the nearest dish. “I’m sorry about foisting them on you this afternoon, by the way, but I wanted to get Prudence alone.”
The duke looked up and smiled, a smile of peculiar sweetness. “Oh yes. I didn’t mind. Not at all.” He sighed and helped himself to a dish of buttered crab with smelts.
Gideon, frowning, spooned something onto his plate. “So tell me, Coz, what’s wrong with them?”
The duke frowned. “Wrong? The crabs are excellent.”
“Not the crabs, the sisters. The flies in the ointment,” Gideon said impatiently. “What’s wrong with them?”
Edward blinked. “There’s nothing wrong with them, Gideon.”
“Not cross-eyed, or simple, or obviously deranged?”
Edward stared. “No, they’re quite, quite perfect.”
Gideon shru
gged. “They must take fits, then.”
“Why in heaven’s name would you think so?”
“Apparently Sir Oswald is adamant that the other sisters would ruin Prudence’s chances—he doesn’t know about Otterbury, by the way—so he’s insisting that Prudence be fired off first. And underneath the bluster, he’s pretty shrewd, so there must be something to it. If he says the sisters could ruin her chances, there must be something very wrong with ’em.”
“No, it will be their looks that have him worried.”
Gideon raised his brows. “Ah, a trifle on the gargoyle side, are they?”
“On the gargoyle—” Edward paused, the fork halfway to his mouth. “Do you mean to say you didn’t notice?”
“Notice what?”
Edward shook his head in disbelief. “Far from being gargoyles, Prudence’s sisters are all quite extraordinarily beautiful.”
Gideon frowned. “Beautiful? Are they? Are you sure?” He lifted his fork and paused. He glowered down at his plate. He had unaccountably filled it with stewed cucumbers. He detested stewed cucumbers.
“They quite dazzle the eyes,” confirmed his cousin.
“As lovely as Prudence?”
The duke’s jaw dropped. After a moment he recovered himself and said, “Much lovelier than Prudence. That, I surmise, is the problem. Each one of her sisters, even little Grace, would outshine Prudence in every respect.”
Gideon stared at him in a moment’s disbelief. “I might not have taken much notice of the other sisters, but I did spend upwards of half an hour with young Grace, and though she’s a nice little thing and quite pretty, she’s not a patch on Prudence.”
